Garcia's group focused on three major areas in 2005. The first area was to enable and support product innovations, one of which involved the G-Cash payment system. Another key focus for Globe was the strengthening of support systems and infrastructure for customer service. The last key area involved the implementation of process improvements for significant gains towards speed-to-market, quality delivery, and cost efficiency.
'In the area of innovation, we continued with the expansion of our G-Cash service, not only in terms of increasing partnerships, outlets, and subscribers, but also in the type of services,' said Garcia in an interview with Computerworld Philippines. G-Cash is a mobile payment system introduced by Globe which became the first mobile platform to be used for tax payments to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Micro-financing was also a significant area for G-Cash in 2005 as Globe's partnerships with rural banks and cooperatives provided a mobile system for the customers of these organizations -- who are Globe and Touch Mobile subscribers -- to pay their loans. G-Cash is now also used as mode of payment for utility bills and insurance premiums, and major department stores have also integrated G-Cash into their point-of-sale systems. 'We have on pilot an automated G-Cash Machine that will go into commercial launch once the regulators grant approval,' said Garcia. G-Cash, like its counterpart Smart Padala, is now also a preferred mode of payment by some online shoppers at online shopping Web sites like ebay.ph.
'G-cash is a source of pride for us, as the service has also gained international recognition,' said Garcia. Two other 'baby projects' of Globe's IS group are G2P and Ask-G. G2P is a service that allows a subscriber to switch from a postpaid subscription to prepaid mode while Ask-G frees subscribers of the need to memorize all access codes and keywords by having them send any query to A-S-K-G (2574) for instructions on all Globe's value-added services. 'From a technology standpoint, G2P is probably the first implementation of what we call a hybrid (postpaid-prepaid) product in a non-convergent billing environment,' said Garcia.
In the second half 2005, Globe also made the news as it conducted the first local telco trials of 3G technology, after getting the approval of the National Telecommunications Commission earlier on.
Garcia shared that he also had to deal with contending priorities and potential distractions, much like in any other business. 'I think the keys to success, aside from ensuring that the IT team is aware of the need to be consistent with business priorities, are focus and disciplined execution,' he said. Having to deal with limited resources -- especially more significant because his group has to ensure efficient and high-quality delivery to a very large base of subscribers -- Garcia makes sure that those resources are used in areas where they could provide the most value.
Garcia said that technological headaches would come and go but there are always solutions for these. What is a constant challenge, however, is operating in an industry characterized by a constant influx of new technology that requires sizable investments, intense competition -- which puts pressure on revenues -- and the need to maintain quality of service that meets or exceeds customer expectations. 'Addressing these areas would require the whole company, and not just one or two groups, to work together towards a common set of goals,' he said.
Another key challenge is in ensuring that the IT strategy is aligned with business strategy and directions, said Garcia. The IT group needed to be a credible partner of the business which, he said, can only be achieved by transparency in its plans and directions. This required constant communication with the rest of the organization and fulfilling delivery promises. An added pressure on CIOs and IT professionals is the reality that IT knowledge is no longer exclusive to the technical group. This puts greater responsibilities on the IT group to know more than the rest of the users and be able to live up to everybody's expectations.
Garcia tries to look at this last issue positively. 'If more people speak IT's language, then it is easier for IT to be understood, and consequently, it will be easier for IT to work with the rest of the organization, and vice-versa,' he said. He said he also feels very positive about the support they are getting from government agencies. Two areas where the Globe IT group and its counterparts on the business side have been receiving significant support from government agencies are on the regulatory front and in partnerships.
'For our G-cash product, we work with the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) and the Bangko Sentral to make sure that the service and its variants are compliant with government requirements,' he said, adding that these government organizations have been very receptive in their various discussions with them. In terms of partnerships, Garcia said that when they launched the implementation of tax payments and business permits via SMS early this year, it was made possible through partnerships with the BIR and the Land Bank of the Philippines.
For 2006, the Globe CIO said that they would remain on the lookout for services that could be launched using new access technologies. Garcia talked about being on the lookout for services instead of technology because he believes that technology, by itself, will not sell in the mass market. 'We have seen this with WAP and GPRS,' he said, which is why Globe has to look for services that could be spawned using these new technologies and determines how much value such services will provide to the customer.
In terms of 3G deployment, Garcia said that this would depend on several factors: infrastructure; affordability of handsets and services; the availability of services such as video calls and video conferencing; and the quality of service -- a key factor since the customer expectations for 3G quality is better than 2 or 2.5G. 'There now are parallel activities that are in progress within the organization towards achieving readiness in these different areas.' With infrastructure, Garcia said that they would have to give priority to areas where the subscriber base is a potential user of 3G.
Since the customers' attitude regarding 3G would depend on the need, affordability, and the quality of services that it will deliver, Garcia noted the need to differentiate such services from those delivered via 2 or 2.5G. 'Although I think there is a segment of the market -- the so-called 'early adopters' -- that will immediately pick up the service, pervasiveness of usage will depend largely on these factors,' he said.
In 2006, Garcia said he expects to see and hear more about the various acronyms that have been seen and heard this year like 3G, VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), IPTV (IP Television), POC (Push-to-talk over Cellular), RFID (Radio Frequency identification), and so on. The adoption of these technologies would, however, depend largely on the services that would enable it, he said. 'We can always look back to the time when SMS was new. Only a few were using it, until people discovered that it was an efficient way of sending jokes, spreading rumors, or simply keeping in touch.'