In its commitment to being the leading digital conglomerate in the Philippines, JG Summit Holdings, Inc. held a two-day exhibit and conference to equip its business units as they embark on the digital transformation journey that the conglomerate has already begun.
Held on August 6–7 at Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria, the first JG Summit Digital Enterprise Conference gathered in one space key multinational information technology companies that specialize in mobile solutions, security applications, artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced analytics, cloud infrastructure, and more.
With their invaluable expertise in the fast-moving world of IT, the event’s participating global players helped arm JG Summit employees for the future. Says JG Summit chief information officer Carlos Santos, “The first Digital Enterprise Conference allowed members of the JG Summit conglomerate to be exposed to the best-in-class solutions that can accelerate the digital transformation of the company.”
Business made better
Organized by JG Summit’s Corporate Information Systems Office and ICT Procurement Office, the Digital Enterprise Conference welcomed participating employees from 20 JG Summit business units and affiliates.
Gathering at the event were representatives from the group’s units that span a vast spectrum of industries: 1Aviation, Aspen Business Solutions, Aviation Partnership Philippines, Cebu Pacific, CFC Corporation, Data Analytics Ventures Inc. & Digital Equity Ventures, I-Tech Global Solutions, JG Petrochemicals Group, Philippine Academy for Aviation Training, Robinsons Bank, Robinsons Land Corporation, Robinsons Retail Holdings, SIA Engineering (Philippines) Corporation, Summit Media Group, Summit Superbikes and PremiumBikes Corporation, Universal Robina Corporation Agro-Industrial Group, Universal Robina Corporation Branded Consumer Foods Group, Universal Robina Corporation BOPP/Flex/Packaging Division, Universal Robina Corporation Flour, and Universal Robina Corporation Sugar and Renewables.
Throughout the event’s two-day run, partner exhibitors displayed and demonstrated products, services, and technologies that are vital in helping JG Summit business units digitalize their operations and strategies.
Gold partner exhibitors included Palo Alto Networks, Checkpoint Software Technologies Ltd., Amazon Web Services, Huawei, Microsoft, Infosys, SAP, Summit Outdoor Media, and Softype. Silver partner exhibitors were made up of SANDZ, Hewlett Packard, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Honeywell, Samsung, Fasttrack, MDI, and Symantec. Completing the array of IT players were bronze partner exhibitors Procurement and Supply Institute of Asia, Trends & Technologies Inc., Avaya, and Power Mac Center.
Learning for the future
Concurrent with the exhibit were two days of workshops on new developments and game-changing ideas in the field of IT to arm guests with knowledge as they face the conglomerate’s digital transformation head-on.
Key executives and representatives from the event’s partner companies took the stage to impart their expertise on a variety of topics, among them data analytics, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital creative content, paperless methods, the internet of things, and how to do business in the rapidly evolving digital world.
Representing Infosys were Andal Alwan, Regional Head for APAC; Sojish Nair, Director for Southeast Asia; and Vivek Singhal, Sr. Director – SAP Practice. For Checkpoint, it was Arthur Luo, Head of Cloud Security Architect for Southeast Asia. Speaking for SAP were Shailendra Kumar, Vice President and Chief Evangelist of SAP Analytics & Leonardo in Asia Pacific, Japan & Gulf Countries, and Santanu Ghosh, Business Outcome-led Enterprise Digital Transformation Executive. For Summit Outdoor Media, taking over were Menard Medina, Digital Solution Sales and Product Development Manager, and Woods Jin, Director for Sales & Marketing for QSTech, an exclusive partner of Summit Outdoor Media. Speakers for Softype Philippines were Graeme Burt, Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Netsuite for Japan and Asia Pacific; William Chaylis, DSI Global Asia Pacific Sales Director; and Sreyansh Patil, Softype Solution Architect. Taking the floor for Amazon Web Services were Vasily Malanin, Regional IOT Business Development Lead, and Paul Sears, Enterprise Solutions Architect. Speaking for Huawei were Shyam Shen, Vice President of Huawei Cloud Philippines, and Tony Shi of the Southern Pacific Enterprise Networking Solutions Sales Department. Microsoft was represented by Jug Mensenares, Cloud Solutions Architect for Data and Artificial Intelligence. Jaffar Ali, Palo Alto Networks’ Cloud Sales Manager in ASEAN, completed the lineup of experts.
No way to go but digital
Santos is optimistic that the first JG Summit Digital Enterprise Conference has lit a fire in employees as they embrace the vast potential of digitalization.
“The combination of the booths and the talks allowed the participants to learn and be able to see the digital possibilities in their areas,” Santos says. “Several ideas from the event are now being discussed for pilot implementations across the conglomerate.”
Since the first quarter of 2018, JG Summit, under the leadership of president and chief executive officer Lance Y. Gokongwei, has been working hard at fortifying its digital environment by building new ventures, digitalizing existing systems, and forging partnerships with IT vendors.
“The creation of the Digital Transformation Office together with over 200 more digital projects across the conglomerate has ignited the flame of digital transformation in JG Summit,” Santos reveals.
In its journey towards digitalization, JG Summit has begun partnering with a number of key global IT providers including SAP, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and Infosys since 2018.
The JG Summit Digital Enterprise Conference was managed by Summit Media Events. Summit Media is the leading digital lifestyle network in the country, attracting over 26 million monthly unique visitors to its websites and over 34 million social media followers.
