The whole world was put into a standstill with the sudden outbreak of the pandemic brought about by the COVID-19 Virus. Everything went into chaos. No one was able to prepare on how to manage the situation. Everyone was forced to stay at home as it is the best way to lessen the transmission. Most businesses had to resort to work from home arrangement and employees had to adjust their lives converting some parts of their houses into their offices. However, some had to completely shut down as they cannot operate on a work-from-home arrangement which costs millions of people to lose their jobs.
With all the pandemic-related problems happening all at once, companies have resorted to converting to digitalization. Mr. Jerry E. Marqueses Jr., Chief Technology Officer of the MB Villar Group of Companies shared his experiences and insights on how he addressed the challenges he faced as CTO brought about by the pandemic.
CTO’s had to quickly adapt.
One of CTO’s challenge is to make the organization overcome innovation challenges from home (activity of IT team to continuously be able to develop programs and deliver the required assistance of the whole organization) not only with the operational and system disruption brought about by the work from home arrangement, but most importantly to the continuously ever changing customer expectation. We have to ensure that technology is in place to facilitate customer engagement and must be able to shift alongside consumer behavior.
CTO’s are expected to be creative.
We need to find technological solutions at the least possible cost and mitigate the effect of the huge cost of acquisition on the company’s cash flow by making sure that such move is a surefire way of addressing the operational gap. We also need to make sure that the technology being used is something easy to use or navigate so as to make all users work efficiently and at par with that of working in the office setting.
CTO’s must be able to influence.
At times where everyone is trying to figure out how to work in the new environment, learning new systems, addressing concerns brought about by limited resources, we should be able to show everyone that there is available technology that can make working easier. It is our role to convince everyone in the organization that it is now more than ever that digitalization in terms of work processes, database migrations, security protocols, and use of work friendly platforms must be immediately implemented and that investing in technology, tools, and trainings needed to allow each member of the organization to thrive in remote working set up regardless of external conditions.
CTO’s need to have clear foresight of the inevitable unknown.
As main proponent of technology, we must be able to anticipate technological challenges in processes and accessibility and come up with a concrete crisis plan that will ensure the organization’s stability regardless of the circumstances in the future.
CTO’s should be the number one gate keeper.
The biggest challenge brought about by the work from home arrangement is ensuring data privacy. Given the set-up, companies had to give employees access to corporate network which poses a threat to possible cyber security attacks. My Team must able to educate employees on how to secure work data and devices which includes guiding them on how to secure home Wi-Fi networks by using a strong password and giving list of trusted sites, and limiting user’s access on corporate platforms.
BRIA Homes is a subsidiary of GOLDEN MV Holdings, Inc., .one of the largest real estate companies in the country. BRIA Homes is primed to bring quality and affordable house and lot packages and condominium units closer to ordinary Filipino families. This is the goal that drives every single employee in the company, for which the ultimate fulfillment is seeing a client happily moving into BRIA’s homes.
To know more, visit their website at www.bria.com.ph, like and follow “Bria Homes, Inc.” on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Spotify, Viber Community, Telegram Channel, Kakao Talk, LINE and WhatsApp, or call 0939-887-9637.
Written by Cathy Cabelin
