Best of Globe..

Globe Telecom, commonly known as Globe, is a leading telecommunications company in the Philippines. Globe Telecom and Innove Communications rose up to meet their corporate customers demands for complete and relevant solutions, as well as integrated services with the creation of the Enterprise Business Group.

As technology rapidly changes, GlobeNet and GlobeData, the two brands under the Wireline Data Group of Globe Telecom, have fused into one powerful name to serve up integrated winning solutions for their respective customers. GlobeQUEST comes to fore, leveraging on both brands' capabilities and operational strengths. With GlobeQUEST, the Globe Wireline Data proposition materializes, that is to create relevant solutions for business customers based on ubiquitous, value-priced, high-speed data services over a nationwide broadband network.

Globe Telecom’s GlobeQUEST greatly helped DOLE's pineapple plantation in Polomolok, General Santos City. An article came up stating the GlobeQUEST’s partake in the success of DOLE. Here is a brief excerpt from the news article:

"Without technology, we couldn't survive," said Kevin Davis, president of Dole Philippines. "Now, the whole farm is mapped in GPS (geographic positioning system). Our workers can easily monitor which crops are ready for harvest, and which areas are ready for planting." added Davis.

Aside from monitoring the crops, another important aspect of operations in Dole is its plant-to-plant communication. A good communication infrastructure should be in place to ensure the efficiency of operations. For Dole Philippines, a glitch of any of their systems is not a risk they are willing to take.

In 2001, Dole itself was managing its telecommunications needs. But the company decided to focus more on food production rather than on maintenance of their network, so they signed GlobeQUEST to take care of their worries. "What GlobeQUEST did for Dole was to maintain its point-to-point regional network via international private leased line." said Ryan Pangilinan, GlobeQUEST manufacturing segment marketing manager.

However, this is still not as cost-effective as having all the regional networks connected to each other. Because of this, GlobeQUEST is currently migrating Dole's domestic and regional network to a Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)-based Internet Protocol-Virtual Private Network (IP-VPN). "This enables any of Dole's domestic and regional sites to coordinate seamlessly, 24/7, through voice and data communications," said Pangilinan.

The network is built over a fully digital, nationwide backbone using Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), and Internet Protocol on both fiber optic and digital microwave technologies. International connections are made using GlobeQUEST-owned capacity on APCN2 (Asia Pacific Cable Network 2), JUCN (Japan-US Cable Network), C2C, and CUCN.

"GlobeQUEST provides Dole with inter-connectivity with our offices worldwide. Since we export perishable goods, it is a big help to have seamless collaboration with the other regional offices," said Jonah Edrolin, telecommunications, automation, and management information manager at Dole Philippines. "It helps us keep track of what stocks we need to replenish so that we could deliver faster."


Another amazing contribution of Globe in the M-commerce industry is GCash.
It is one of the most impressing from the onset, Globe G-Cash was envisioned as an integrated mobile payment system. A year since its introduction, the first wireless, cashless and cardless payment service in the country has made the convenience and reliability of M-Commerce.

Globe is working with CGAP to create ecosystems or mini-economies with multiple locations for people to transact with GCASH, their mobile banking service, via SMS messaging. Through intensive marketing, targeted customer education, and rapid sign-up and accreditation of retailers, the project will bring mobile phone-based payments and money transfer services for the first time to three predominantly low-income rural provinces. A total of 80,000 GCASH users in the three pilot provinces are expected to be reached, with greater success than would otherwise be possible without CGAP’s support.

In one of the interviews of the President of G-Xchange, Inc. (a part of the Globe Telecom’s companies), Rizza Maniego-Eala last November 25, 2008 to tell more about GCash that this is just the latest in a series of innovative efforts by Globe to expand financial services using mobile phones.


Here is her interview by Jim Rosenberg:


Jim: How far would you say GCASH has evolved in terms of developing ecosystems for mobile commerce?

Rizza: Today, GCASH has over 6,000 domestic outlets in the Philippines servicing our 1.9 million GCASH subscribers. Recently we renewed our partnership with The Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines (RBAP) to further expand existing mobile phone banking services of rural banks. Using the GCASH payment platform and developed with RBAP’s Micro-enterprise Access to Banking Services (MABS) program, the convenience of mobile banking, many rural banks are using GCASH integrated into their operations benefiting the bank by being able to reach more clients and provide an additional channel for accessing the various financial services offered.

We’ve also begun a pilot transfer program for Filipinos in Hawaii, Singapore, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates that allows them to send Western Union mobile money transfers directly to friends and family who are GCASH subscribers in the Philippines. The cross-border service supports low-principal and high-frequency remittances at much lower rates.



Jim: Describe the importance of pricing for the lower income segment of the market.

Rizza: In the Philippines, the greater portion of the population lives at or below poverty line. In spite of this, there are over 60 million mobile phone subscribers and around 98% are on prepaid services. GCASH benefits the lower income segments because it reduces the transaction fees and costs to send and receive money. GCASH requires only a mobile phone and a one-time SMS-based registration, with a minimal charge of U$0.02 (P1.00) per transaction. Subscribers can do their transactions at home instead of traveling several kilometers to rural banks to pay or do their banking transactions.

Jim: For those of us who are less familiar with the Philippines, describe the importance of remittances to the country, as well as to your business.

Rizza: The Philippines received international remittances worth an estimated $16 billion (this year alone) constituting about 13% of our GDP. The continued growth of remittances to the Philippines plays an integral role in the strength of the financial sector and our economy as a whole. The Philippine domestic remittance profile is also growing although it is quite tough to find third party data estimating the size of this market. As both international and domestic remittances form a large part of our country’s economy, we continue to look ways in which GCASH can provide low-priced, secure and easily accessible solutions for our growing merchant partner-base and various consumer segments.

Jim: What are the benefits of GCASH to your partners on the ground – banking agents?

Rizza: GCASH is all about convenience and lower transaction costs. For partner establishments, GCASH has the potential of reducing costs and promoting efficiency. Since transactions are electronic, their processing capabilities are automated thereby reducing manual handling and potential reducing back office costs. The reduction of operating cost could translate to increased margins, better value passed on to our partners’ customers, or both. Utilizing GCASH to help in our partners’ automation and increased access to more customers requires almost zero capital expenditure on their part.


To date, G-Cash has earned the following awards:

· GSM Awards: Best Mobile Messaging Service; Feb. ‘05

· Mobile News Asia: Most Innovative Mobile Operator Service; June ‘05

· GMA (Global Messaging Awards): Best M-commerce Service Application; June ‘05

· A gora Awards: World Class Excellence in Phil. Marketing; Nov. ‘05

· MCEA (Marketing Communications Effectiveness Awards): Gold prize in the Most Effective

New Service Introduction category; Aug. ‘05

Indeed G-Cash has gone a long way in so short a time. Still the biggest innovation to date,

G-Cash’s promise of payments for products and services at the speed of an SMS continues to

excite the imagination of Filipinos everywhere. Its ease and convenience also makes G-Cash a

popular upgrade for many companies, helping to boost productivity when they enter the arena

of mobile commerce.

“(The support) of G-Cash will go a long way in sustaining much-needed projects such as disaster

relief and rehabilitation, blood donation drives, and barangay-based disaster preparedness

training programs.”

-Sen. Richard Gordon, Philippine National Red Cross, Chairperson

“We’re looking forward to implementing RBAP Text-a-Payment because it reduces costs, eliminates

cash-in-transit risk, and brings direct cost savings to our clients.”

-Benedict Romualdez Tudtud, Rural Bank of Mandaue, Inc, Member of the Board of Directors

“Remittance services are not always readily available in rural areas, and G-Cash helps TelOf

facilitate such services,”

-Atty. Graciano Sitchon, TelOf, Executive Director.

“Mas mabilis ang G-Cash kumpara sa ibang money transfer, secure[d] pa (G-Cash is faster compared

to other money transfers, plus it’s secure).”

-Arwin Reyes, a registered G-Cash subscriber.

Managerial Roles by Mintzberg - The Social Aspect of Leadership

Management expert Professor Henry Mintzberg has argued that a manager’s work can be boiled down to ten common roles. According to Mintzberg, these roles, or expectations for a manager’s behavior, fall into three categories: informational (managing by information), interpersonal (managing through people), and decisional (managing through action).

1. Informational Roles. By virtue of interpersonal contacts, both with subordinates and with a network of contacts, the manager emerges as the nerve center of the organizational unit. The manager may not know everything but typically knows more than subordinates do. Processing information is a key part of the manager's job. As monitor, the manager is perpetually scanning the environment for information, interrogating liaison contacts and subordinates, and receiving unsolicited information, much of it as a result of the network of personal contacts. As a disseminator, the manager passes some privileged information directly to subordinates, who would otherwise have no access to it. As spokesperson, the manager sends some information to people outside the unit.

♦ Monitor -gathers internal and external information relevant to the organization;
♦ Disseminator - transmits factual and value based information to subordinates;
♦ Spokesperson - communicates to the outside world on performance and policies.

2. Decisional Roles. Information is not an end in itself; it is the basic input to decision making. The manager plays the major role in a unit's decision-making system. As its formal authority, only the manager can commit the unit to important new courses of action; and as its nerve center, only the manager has full and current information to make the set of decisions that determines the unit's strategy. As entrepreneur, the manager seeks to improve the unit, to adapt it to changing conditions in the environment. As disturbance handler, the manager responds to pressures from situations. As resource allocator, the manager is responsible for deciding who will get what. As negotiator, the manager commits organizational resources in real time.

♦ Entrepreneur - designs and initiates change in the organization;
♦ Disturbance Handler - deals with unexpected events and operational breakdowns;
♦ Resource Allocator - controls and authorizes the use of organizational resources;
♦ Negotiator - participates in negotiation activities with other organizations and individuals.

3. Interpersonal Roles. As figurehead, every manager must perform some ceremonial duties. As leader, managers are responsible for the work of the people of their unit. As liaison, the manager makes contacts outside the vertical chain of command.

♦ Figurehead - performs ceremonial and symbolic duties as head of the organization.
♦ Leader - foster a proper work atmosphere and motivates subordinates
♦ Liaison - develops and maintains a network of external contacts to gather information;

REFERENCES:

http://management.atwork-network.com/2008/04/15/mintzberg%e2%80%99s-10-managerial-roles.htm

csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2000/.../04937055.pdf

IS Leadership Roles (CSC) - The Technical Aspect of Leadership

Changes in both information technology and competition
continue to change the role of the information systems
executive. Computer Science Corporation (1996) has suggested six new IS
leadership roles:

1. Chief architect. The chief architect designs future possibilities for the business. The primary work of the chief architect is to design and evolve the IT infrastructure so that it will expand the range of future possibilities for the business, not define specific business outcomes. The infrastructure should provide not just today's technical services, such as networking, databases and desktop operating systems, but an increasing range of business-level services, such as workflow, portfolio management, scheduling, and specific business components or objects.

2. Change leader. The change leader orchestrates resources to achieve optimal implementation of the future. The essential role of the change leader is to orchestrate all those resources that will be needed to execute the change program. This includes providing new IT tools, but it also involves putting in the place teams of people who can redesign roles, jobs and work flow, who can change beliefs about the company and the work people do, and who understand human nature and can develop incentive systems to coax people into new and different behaviors.

3. Product developer. The product developer helps define the company’s place in the emerging digital economy. For example, a product developer might recognize the potential for performing key business processes (perhaps order fulfillment, purchasing or delivering customer support) over electronic linkages such as the Internet. The product developer must "sell" the idea to a business partner, and together they can set up and evaluate business experiments, which are initially operated out of IS. Whether the new methods are adopted or not, the company will learn from the experiments and so move closer to commercial success in emerging digital markets.

4. Technology provocateur. The technology provocateur embeds IT into the business strategy. The technology provocateur works with senior business executives to bring IT and realities of the IT marketplace to bear on the formation of strategy for the business. The technology provocateur is a senior business executive who understands both the business and IT at a deep enough level to integrate the two perspectives in discussions about the future course of the business. Technology provocateurs have a wealth of experience in IS disciplines, so they understand at a fundamental level the capabilities of IT and how IT impacts the business.

5. Coach. The coach teaches people to acquire the skillsets they will need for the future. Coaches have to basic responsibilities: teaching people how to learn, so that they can become self-sufficient, and providing team leaders with staff able to do the IT-related work of the business. A mechanism that assists both is the center of excellence - a small group of people with a particular

competence or skill, with a coach responsible for their growth and development. Coaches are solid practitioners of the competency

that they will be coaching, but need not be the best at it in the company.

6. Chief operating strategist. The chief operating strategist invents the future with senior management. The chief operating strategist is the top IS executive who is focused on the future agenda of the IS organization. The strategist has parallel responsibilities related to helping the business design the future, and then delivering it. The most important, and least understood, parts of the role have to do with the interpretation of new technologies and the IT marketplace, and the bringing of this understanding into the development of the digital business strategy for the organization.

reference:
csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2000/.../04937055.pdf

my Learnings.. my Reflections..

Last June 18, 2007 was our first day of class in our subject MIS

(Management Information Systems)
I was not surprised that our subject teacher would be Dr. Randy S. Gamboa because the older students had already told us that he handles MIS subject.
After a few introduction of the new faces in our class Sir Gamboa started our first discussion on MIS.

We had dissected MIS starting from M which is Management..
We learned that if we are talking about management we are dealing with PDOC;
the planning, directing, organizing and controlling.. these are the four
important steps in management.
'everyday and almost everything we are doing we doing some management',
this is idea is resulted from the definition of management we had, then we are asked,
if we could manage things could we be also managed?who manages us?
In my mind i answered 'we are managed by our parents, our teachers, etc.'but i was wrong, only things, data, processes are managed but not people.
People have feelings and are not robots which we could control.
Instead of people being managed, they are being facilitated, guided or led. From that, it showed us the difference of management and leadership.

Then we defined IS - Information Systems...
if IT is equated to as hardware + soft ware, IS on the other hand is equated to as hardware + software + people ware, thus IS = IT + people ware.
Therefore, logically, MIS = management ( hardware + software + people ware)
but wait....
We could recall that only things, processes, data could be managed not people.. People ware is a part of IS of which, as what we have learned previously, could only be led not managed..
There is a conflict about the real definition of MIS, should it be really MANAGEMENT or LEADERSHIP?
The discussion ended with a hanging question for us..

In my own point of view, leadership should be the right term to use.. People ware could only be led, and these people ware could manage the hardware and software.. This makes MIS a leadership among managers of hardware and software or IT or leading the IT industry to its right path to where it could benefit the many.