Microsoft Helps Davao SMEs with IT productivity

The Microsoft IT Roadshow landed in Davao City on September 12 at the Grand Men Seng Hotel with the aim of helping small and medium scale industries (SMEs) and local government units (LGUs) improve their productivity with IT, specifically with the tools that they probably already have at their disposal and the tools that Microsoft will be launching in the coming months. Davao City is the second stop of the 15-city, 2-month road show which started last week at Gen San last Sept 10.

 

Three of Microsoft most valuable professionals in the Philippines —EuferPasion, John Erwin Magno, and ElczarAdame, shared with the entrepreneurs and LGUs employees present the different ways to use Microsoft tools to help do more with less time. Employees, business owners and students alike can now improve work and business productivity, without the need fora developer or IT expert.

 

Tips and Tricks

 

It was such a surprise to those present how the most widely used Microsoft tools like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel actually had these little tricks that can improve productivity. Mr. Magno showed how underutilized these tools were when he demonstrated the different functionalities that these applications have that most people didn’t know about. Just some of the functionalities demonstrated were complex image editing in Microsoft Word, video editing for PowerPoint, and data analysis tools like sparklines, slicers, and pivot tables in Excel.

 

Another underutilized tool in the Microsoft Office Suite, demonstrated by Mr.Adame, is SharePoint. SharePoint is a web application platform that allows businesses to collaborate, share documents and applications, automate process flow, file management and website creation. Businesses can now have an online collaboration tool that they can create in minutes and it comes integrated with all the Microsoft applications needed for business such as InfoPath and Visio. This platform is already being used by companies like InfoSys and Energizer to help strengthen collaboration, improve customer response time, and increase team productivity.

 

Windows 8 Presentation 

 

The participants were also given an in depth look of the capabilities of Windows 8, which is expected to be released this October 26 PC brands HP, Samsung, Acer, Dell, Sony, Lenovo, among others. Mr.Pasion boasted of the operating system’s speed, fluidity, and seamless integration with web applications. He shows how Microsoft was able to keep the tried and true applications that PC users love but make them more dynamic and useful across all types of devices. He demonstrated how the versatility of Windows 8 allows anyone to work or play from anywhere, using any device, without losing touch of their personalized settings and preferences. 

 

Along with the presentation of Windows 8 is a preview of Office 2013 and SkyDrive, Microsoft’s cloud storage system.

 

Davao: Key IT Location

 

Ms. Laurie Mae Rivera-Moreno, BG Lead for Windows Client, was touched with the reception they got from the Davao City.  “We were very happy with the warm reception we got from Davao. IT is really thriving here. Davao has a strong ecosystem of IT pros and developers. You have a very talented developer pool. That’s why Davao is always on ouritinerary.

 

This roadshow is also to enable our partners and train them so they can support the Davao community. We want to make sure our technical people are trained so they’ll know how to support the thriving IT community here.”

 

The road show will continue on until Oct 12 where they will be visiting 13 more cities. The next stop will be Cagayan De Oro on Sept 14, then to the Visayas on Sept 17-21. The road show will then be making the rounds all over Luzon and Metro Manila from the Sept 24 to Oct. 12.

 

The road show is part of Microsoft’s digital literacy campaign “AngatPinoy, AngatNegosyo, AngatPilipinas!” and their mission of teaching SMEs to use IT to make Filipino businesses more competitive. — TJD, GMA News