Globe to push corporate data business this year

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom will push its corporate data business this year to sustain the growth performance in 2009, company officials said yesterday.

The move forms part of Globe’s key priorities in 2010 which include increasing its share in the mobile wallet business, driving strong broadband growth, and delivering reliable and high quality network services.

Globe, through its corporate arm Globe Business, intends to grow its fixed line data revenues further this year by expanding its service offerings to enterprise customers. Globe Business has adopted a strategy from being an access-based services provider to a solutions-based provider since last year.

Globe Business led the double-digit growth in the corporate data business in 2009. Its fixed line data revenues rose 23 percent to P3 billion in 2009 following the uptick in the outsourcing and offshoring industry and its earlier efforts to increase capacity of its high-speed data network in support of the connectivity requirements of its corporate clients.

“We will increasingly diversify our product portfolio to include managed services, leveraging on our close relationship with our corporate clients by offering value-adding solutions and not just pure carrier services,” Globe president and CEO Ernest Cu said.

For his part, Globe Business head Gil B. Genio explained that the continuous network upgrades and increased support for both domestic and international network expansion will help meet the growing demands of businesses requiring end-to-end multiple solutions in voice, data or video connectivity.

“For 2010, we are in a better position to provide enterprise customers with more compelling and innovative solutions such as Tracker and ONEcall, our superior roaming and international calling services, our BlackBerry service offerings, and the superior wireless data experience of being Globe-connected,” Genio said.

Globe Tracker GPS enables enterprise customers to track moving assets accurately and in real-time to ensure tighter security and enhance their existing processes. GPS is a satellite navigation system that determines a precise location of anything almost anywhere on earth.

ONEcall is the first and only virtual trunkline service in the Philippines. Especially designed for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), ONEcall allows people to collectively stay connected at anytime with just one landline number, which is a virtual trunkline where all the extensions or local numbers are made up of mobile phones of employees.

Aside from the double-digit growth it generated for its corporate data revenues, Globe Business achieved milestones last year. Globe received MEF 9 certification for its Carrier Ethernet services – a first in the Philippine telecommunications industry. The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) certification is a worldwide assurance of quality.

“By having the MEF 9 certification, we ensure enterprise customers that the Carrier Ethernet services they get from Globe Business work seamlessly with what they have in other parts of the world,” Genio added.

Globe also maintained its position as the best connected ISP in the Philippines, another milestone in 2009, based on CAIDA’s ranking of Autonomous Systems (AS). The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) is a collaborative undertaking among organizations in the commercial, government, and research sectors aimed at promoting greater cooperation in the engineering and maintenance of a robust, scalable global Internet infrastructure.

Globe Data Center also achieved an ISO 27001:2005 certification for having met the Information Security Management System (ISMS) standard and received an ISO 9001:2008 certification upgrade for meeting the quality management system standard. Both certifications were awarded to Globe by Anglo Japanese American (AJA) Registrars Ltd., a certification body accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).