PLDT Enterprise, through its ICT arm ePLDT, received major awards during the recently concluded Cisco Philippines Partner Appreciation Awards after being recognized as the global tech giant’s Software Partner of 2020 and Small Business Partner of 2020. Similarly, Cisco hailed PLDT Inc. as its Tier 2 Partner of the year during its annual Partner Summit Conference.

“We would like to thank Cisco Philippines for this recognition. It is a confirmation to our group’s capabilities in delivering Cisco solutions in the market, which have enabled many businesses to continue their operations successfully amid the current challenges,” said Jovy Hernandez, ePLDT President & CEO and SVP & Head for PLDT and Smart Enterprise Business Groups.

The award Small Business Partner 2020 recognizes the group’s ICT arm ePLDT Inc. not only for the revenue brought in but the effort in creating unique solutions that differentiate ePLDT’s value and help businesses thrive amid the pandemic. Cisco conferred the Small Business Partner 2020 award to ePLDT which recognizes the group for being brave to launch new solutions amid the health crisis such as BEYOND FIBER, which is one of the results of the group’s partnership with Cisco Meraki.

The Software Partner of 2020 award, meanwhile, recognizes ePLDT for enabling its customers to turn data generated by the hardware into actionable insights and new revenue streams. PLDT Enterprise through ePLDT stood out among Cisco’s partners with significant recurring software bookings for majority of the customers in the commercial segment, via SD-WAN and Meraki software offers in the frontline of their productized solutions.  The group also has recently completed transformation activities and is now going to market with their new offers leading the way.

PLDT Inc. was also hailed as Cisco’s Tier 2 Partner of the Year for bringing significant revenue growth in the Philippines. As a strategic partner to Cisco, investments have been made to help accelerate the country’s digitization plan where together a multi-year digital transformation journey was embarked. Together, PLDT and Cisco are modernizing their own transport network into a fully-automated software-defined 5G ready network delivering cutting edge technologies and enabling the capability to respond to the increasing customer demand for data amidst the global health crisis. 

“With the onset of the pandemic early last year, the need to strengthen our digital infrastructure was top priority, and we have been fortunate to have Cisco as our partner,” said Al Panlilio, PLDT Chief Revenue Officer and Smart President and CEO. He added, “this recognition is a milestone as we continue our efforts at PLDT to help enable the country gear up for the next generation of digital technologies.”

PLDT’s partnership with global technology leader Cisco has been part of PLDT’s broader transport network transformation project which was first implemented several years ago, with the aim of deploying cutting-edge technology to design and build automated, highly reliable, highly scalable, software-defined, next-generation infrastructure utilizing telco’s existing fiber network to seamlessly deliver customized digital experiences to customers.

Cisco has been committed to helping Filipino entrepreneurs, helping them cope with the rapid technological change by sharing its learnings and partnering with industry leaders and organizations. Karrie Ilagan, Cisco Philippines Managing Director, congratulated PLDT Enterprise, ePLDT and PLDT Inc, for these awards, saying “we celebrate the important contributions and achievements of PLDT, as they exceptionally execute these digital programs that have greatly assisted customers.”

For more information, visit pldtenterprise.com or epldt.com.