Alibaba Cloud launches digital ecosystem strategy in Philippines

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence arm of Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, on Thursday launched a digital ecosystem strategy in the Philippines aimed at helping businesses adapt to the post-pandemic digital era.

“Businesses now see digitalization an essential need rather than a plus point, and they want to transform as quickly as they can after the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lancelot Guo, president of Ecosystem and Sales Operations at Alibaba Cloud intelligence, said.

“A successful adoption of cloud is only possible when the ecosystem is brought together to support customers’ needs,” he said.

Alibaba Cloud’s pool of global partners includes Geneva-based finance software firm Temenos and Massachusetts-based analytics database company Vertica, Alibaba Cloud said it can better help Filipino businesses from blue chip companies to small and medium enterprises go digital.

“Philippines customers will benefit more from small and medium partners, who have a better affinity and intuition of what they need, especially post the pandemic where digitalization needs to take place rapidly. We are not only working with these partners, we are also empowering them with our know-hows drawn from our global experience,” Allen Guo, general manager for the Philippines at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said.

Alibaba Cloud said it currently has local partners from various industries such as retail, fintech, media, information and communications technology (ICT), business process outsourcing (BPO), healthcare, and education.

The company also aims to serve 5,000 businesses in the Philippines by end-2023.

Alibaba Cloud also targets to train 50,000 and certify at least 10,000 IT professionals within the next three years.

The company said it is currently working with close to 10,000 partners to serve 350,000 businesses worldwide, and previously announced a $283 million investment this year to further empower global partners and accelerate joint innovations. — Ted Cordero/BM, GMA News