Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Japanese tech firms look to PH as regional tech talent hub

CEBU CITY— A Global tech firm Sansan opened a development center in the Philippines and is hiring up to 100 staff and decided to establish its presence in the Philippines to strengthen its product development for overseas markets as it sees more business opportunities in the country.

In 2023, more tech firms will consider expanding their presence in the Philippines to ride a wave of digitisation that is sweeping the country. It comes as the country continues actively attracting and supporting global IT companies, and is becoming known for its high-level IT education and large pool of talented engineers.

Fujikura Shigemoto, Executive Officer, Head of Overseas Establishment Team of Sansan, Inc., bared that the Philippines has an opportunity to attract more foreign companies to set up tech hubs in the country that serve the wider Asean region, especially for software development and engineering talent that can boost foreign direct investment into the country’s economy, supporting the government’s agenda.

What the pandemic highlighted, if anything, it was how underprepared businesses across Asean, including the Philippines when it came to the resiliency of its finance operations. This must now be corrected by putting in place digital infrastructure to support business continuity planning, Shigemoto said.

According to Shigemoto, the trends for the year ahead include going paper-free by moving more data into the cloud, building out digital finance infrastructure to support business resilience, and establishing the Philippines as a regional tech hub for talent.

 Going paper-free or moving data into the cloud means reducing carbon footprints for individuals and businesses to align the Philippines with UN climate goals to reach net zero emissions.

This can begin in small areas such as by digitising invoices and other paper-based processing in corporate functions like accounting, as well as adopting digital namecards, effectively moving data off of paper and into the cloud.

“Currently, our Singapore employees are in charge of sales outside of Japan. We thought that the Philippines, a country geographically close to Japan and Singapore, would be the best location to make a new development team. The team can communicate directly with people in Singapore, listen to the feedback of Singapore users, and discuss with CS members. That is how the establishment of the new development base in the Philippines started,” he added.

He said that he visits the country once a month for about two weeks each time to provide a high performance environment. He tries to learn about the culture and the people of the Philippines to give them the right opportunity and environment to succeed. (Photos: Sansan Website/Google Images)

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