MANAGEENGINE, an information technology (IT) management firm, plans to form a local unit and open an office in the Philippines to expand the reach of its services.
Arun Kumar, ManageEngine regional director for Asia-Pacific, said in an interview on the sidelines of a report launch in Makati City last week that the company is already looking for employees for its Philippine presence.
“We are already looking for people. Probably by the beginning of 2023, we might have a few people locally to support our customers and partners and assist them in terms of training, enabling them, doing workshops, conferences. That could be an immediate start. We will be looking at the first quarter of next year,” Mr. Kumar said.
ManageEngine is the enterprise IT management unit of Zoho Corp., a tech company headquartered in Chennai, India.
Mr. Kumar said that ManageEngine currently has more than 750 partner companies in the Philippines.
“We also want to expand in the market since we have a very good of over 750 enterprises consisting of medium to large companies. We have a good number of partners here. I think it is the right time for us to get into the market and work with the local community to grow the business,” he added.
Mr. Kumar said that ManageEngine is also eyeing to have an office in the Philippines, although there is no prospective site yet.
“We’ll get started with the employees and then as we hire people, we will also gradually open the office. The employees would be mostly technical people who understand our products and the customers’ requirement,” Mr. Kumar said.
He said the functions that the company is looking for “from a local business standpoint” would be to assist customers and partners.
“It would be more of customer-facing roles that we will be hiring. Once we hire them, we might actually look out for options,” he added.
According to Mr. Kumar, the company has been posting a 30% growth in its revenue and customer count since it started operations in 2002.
“As a company, we have been growing at 30% every year. But usually, our growth is in line with our customer acquisitions as well. The 30% growth applies in terms of both revenue and customer acquisition or the customers that enter ManageEngine,” Mr. Kumar said.
Meanwhile, ManageEngine released a study “IT at Work: 2022 and beyond” for the Philippines which involved 150 respondents (73 IT decision-makers and 77 business decision-makers) from local organizations.
The survey showed 84% of respondents see that the IT department is more responsible for business innovation, while 77% said that IT could push for greater innovation with a stronger leadership position.
“IT departments play a crucial role in developing value-added strategies and providing deep insights into organizations’ digitization potential,” Mr. Kumar said.
“IT teams need to work together with non-IT departments by equipping non-IT staff with the necessary skills and knowledge to embark on a digital innovation journey. With this collaboration and shared knowledge, IT and non-IT employees can form a strong and resilient barrier that will keep critical resources secure from cyberattacks while leading tech advancement,” he added. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
