Eugene Garcia: Integrating PLDT’s many IS systems

When Eugene Garcia joined Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. last October, he didn’t get a list of what to do from president and chief executive officer Manuel Pangilinan. He got general expectations.

It helped that PLDT had earlier hired consultants to come up with a study on how to improve the delivery of information system within the company. "It hastened my learning curve. In a sense, much of what I have to do has already been documented. I just have to implement the recommendations which I deem appropriate," he said.

It also helped that the IS skill requirement in not significantly different from one industry to another. Although Garcia has had 26 years of IT experience, 11 of them with Citibank N.A., PLDT is his first telecommunication company.

It took him two months to get to know the people, the culture, the IS processes and major applications in PLDT. Given the enormity of the IS function in PLDT, it took him an additional month to fully understand the details of his area of responsibility.

"Within my group, there were long, heated arguments on what was need most – more people or more skills. I felt we had more than enough people but not enough skills," he said. There was also too much specialization, which brought down productivity.

Garcia quickly increased the work pressure on himself and on his people. He set bruising deadlines. He hammered in management’s higher expectations. A generous retirement package was also opened up for people who were too old, not skilled enough or whose positions would later be declared redundant.

Out of the 300 people reporting to Garcia, 25 have either taken the retirement package or have asked to be transferred elsewhere.

Fragmented

There are three IT bosses within the PLDT Group. Garcia is chief information officer of PLDT-Fixed Line or the core PLDT business. Ariel Roda, who used to hold Garcia’s position, is managing director of PLDT. Wilma Cruz is the CIO for the PLDT’s wireless or mobile phone business.

Within the PLDT-Fixed Line business, however, some groups have their own information systems units. The Finance Group, for example, has 10 IS people of its own. These different IS units within PLDT are not integrated and, at times, work independently of each other. In short, they do not act in coordination with other groups. Addressing this problem is one of Garcia’s biggest challenges.

"Part of my job is to sell the services of my group to the different department within PLDT," Garcia said. "Why add to your operating expenses when our group can do the same thing and eventually lower the cost for the company?"

So far, he has sold his idea to the purchasing department. Starting next month, purchasing’s information systems requirements and operation will be managed by Garcia’s group. "Consolidating hardware and computer systems is not much of a problem," he said. "It’s easy to re-deploy excess hardware for other use," he said. "People would be the harder part. We probably cannot absorb all the excess personnel that may result from such a consolidation."

Better services

For Garcia, integrating all the information systems within PLDT would mean better and faster service for PLDT customers. There will be less problems brought about by unintegrated application systems, thereby resulting in improved service delivery.

The PLDT Fixed Line business has set aside P1 billion for its information system capital expenditures for the current year, of which 20% has been spent so far. Around P850 million has also been budgeted for its operating expenses for the year. This, however, does not include the planned expenditures of other smaller IS groups within the organization.

"Personally, I favor in-the-market solutions rather than those developed in-house. Many of the solutions in the marketplace reflect best practices among companies all over the world and are normally more robust in terms of functionalities. I don’t see why we have to spend time and money developing our own proprietary solutions and then spend more time and more money so these systems can interface with each other," Garcia said.

Among the projects which will be operational within the year are:

* the $10-million corporate billing system – to be operational in December, the project will initially serve the billing requirements of PLDT’s corporate accounts. Given the success of its initial implementation, there are plans to extend its use to mass market accounts. This will address many of the difficulties PLDT currently faces because the current billing system does not adequately support the new services recently introduced. This project will have its most significant impact on PLDT’s improved operational efficiency and enhanced capability to market and bundle products which will eventually benefits consumers.

* the $1.6-million integrated system management facility or ISMF – to be launched next month, this allows IS operations management to quickly see all the elements of the IS network and to proactively manage network performance. Right now, each system is managed individually through its own system console; there are no effective alarm systems available.

* the P75-million data warehouse – to be operational in the last quarter, this central data site or repository give anybody within PLDT easier access to information. Full implementation of this project will enhance PLDT’s customer profiling and business profitability analysis capabilities.

* the P70-million business recovery project, which includes the relocation of its current back-up site anad the setting up of an enterprise back-up facility to better protect the business against an unforeseen IS service breakdown of its main data center facilities.

"Information technology is important to PLDT because it is in the forefront of introducing products and services that are IT-based. I foresee this increasing at a faster pace in the coming years," Garcia said.

"In today’s world, I foresee the involvement of IT in the design and introduction of new products and services that will ultimately benefit consumers. On the operations side, it will be very difficult to launch new initiatives without the required IT support systems like PLDT’s new billing system," he added.