The Philippines has become an important hub for multinational companies because of its favorable business environment, which offers cultural affinity, cost efficiency, skilled talents, and a well-established infrastructure.

The rise of modern buildings and towers also meets the needs of these companies, providing high-speed internet, a redundant power supply that includes renewable energy, and enhanced security.

Among skyscrapers that define the stretches of the Ortigas Central Business District, SM Mega Tower continues to embody sustainability, convenience, and cutting-edge amenities that redefine the future of office spaces for businesses in the Philippines.

Because of these factors, the 50-storey S-shaped skyscraper has rapidly become the preferred headquarters for prominent local and multinational firms, as supported by Vertiv’s recent relocation to the building.

Vertiv, a global provider of critical digital infrastructure and continuity solutions, has announced the opening of its new offices in Manila, located at the SM Mega Tower in Mandaluyong City’s central business district.

The new Vertiv offices span over 8,000 square meters across four floors and offer modern amenities, flexible and collaborative workspaces, focus areas, wellness rooms, and an open office concept. These features are tailored to create a conducive environment that fosters productivity and collaboration among its over 1,200 employees.

Understanding how taxing the daily grind can be to its staff, Vertiv Manila has designed the offices with open and dynamic features to inspire Vertiv employees and encourage them to be at their best when at work. Overall, it is hoped the offices will give employees a positive environment where they can grow both at a professional and personal level.

Vertiv’s facility also features a Customer Experience Center (CEC) and the Vertiv Academy. These spaces provide customers with hands-on experiences using Vertiv’s products and technologies that aligns perfectly with the advanced infrastructure offered by SM Mega Tower.

Furthermore, Vertiv’s focus on establishing a multinational environment showcases the ability of the building to support the operations of global enterprises.

As SM Mega Tower welcomes Vertiv, SM Prime’s Vice-President for Commercial Properties Group and SM Offices Head Alexis L. Ortiga expressed how proud SM Offices is to have Vertiv call the said tower their home.

“This new facility is a testament to our shared vision of pioneering ecosystems that are functional and conducive to the modern demands of convenience and collaboration, with a human-centric approach to workplace design,” said Mr. Ortiga.

SM Mega Tower’s advanced features, prime location, and flexible office spaces make it the ideal choice for multinational firms looking to establish a significant presence in the Philippines.

One of the key features that make SM Mega Tower an attractive headquarters option is its strategic location. Adjacent to SM Megamall, one of the largest and most popular shopping destinations in the Philippines, the tower offers unparalleled convenience with access to food options, services, retail, and, most importantly, various modes of public transport, due to the complex’s proximity to two MRT Stations.

Designed by the renowned global architectural firm Arquitectonica, the skyscraper promotes natural daylight and offers expansive 360-degree stunning view options, from a golf course, the mountain range spanning from north to east, the sunrise at Laguna de Bay, and the famous Manila sunset in the west, creating an inspiring and vibrant work environment.

SM Mega Tower’s floor plans are designed with flexibility in mind, accommodating layouts that cater to diverse tenant requirements. Each floor spans approximately 2,000 square meters, allowing businesses to customize their office space to fit their specific needs.

Furthermore, the building is equipped with 29 elevators, divided into three zones to maximize productivity and efficiency, along with service lifts for podium and basement access.

In addition to its visual appeal, the LEED Gold-certified property incorporates various green building strategies to improve its sustainability and resilience. For instance, the building features an advanced chilled water air conditioning system, an energy recovery wheel to maximize cooling, and 100% backup power to ensure operational efficiency and reliability, which are crucial for businesses requiring uninterrupted services. Furthermore, tenants have the option to utilize renewable energy sources, contributing to a lower carbon footprint and supporting environmental stewardship.

According to Mr. Ortiga, by integrating advanced solutions within its properties, SM Offices is reimagining the development and management of office spaces. This initiative also sets new benchmarks for environmental stewardship and operational excellence.

“Our focus is on the long-term impact, setting new standards, and inspiring a shift across the industry. Through strategic proptech integration, we aim to create spaces that not only serve our current tenants but also pave the way for future generations,” he added.

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By Bjorn Biel Beltran

Seeking to democratize business continuity solutions in the Philippines, Converge ICT has introduced its Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), in collaboration with Zerto, a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

The strategic partnership aims to bolster the Philippines’ efforts towards data security, protecting businesses from disruptions borne from natural disasters and human error, and providing a robust shield against potential cyberattacks.

“Today when you talk of disaster, it comes in many forms. Physical, virtual, it could be something local or even something global,” Jesus C. Romero, Senior Executive Vice-President & Chief Operations Officer of Converge ICT Solutions, Inc., said in a presentation. “You’ve heard of many companies getting their data compromised. Sometimes, the data is actually taken away from them. That’s something that we are very conscious of, because it doesn’t matter if you have a disaster recovery site when all of your data has been taken away.”

Unlike traditional backup solutions that only focus on data recovery, DRaaS uses Zerto’s cutting-edge Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology to offer a holistic approach to safeguard businesses against a variety of disruptions, including natural disasters, power outages, and cyber-attacks.

Key features of Converge ICT DRaaS include always-on replication, near-synchronous replication ensuring thousands of recovery points, delivering the lowest Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs). There are also journal-based recovery logs that records every change into a journal with second-level granularity, allowing swift recovery to just before an incident.

Meanwhile, application-centric recovery protects multi-VM applications as a single unit for consistent and straightforward recovery.

“With an effective disaster recovery or DR plan and solution in place, your organization becomes resilient and able to easily resume operations with minimal downtime and data loss,” Jessica Powell-Bragas, Channels, Partner Ecosystem & Commercial Sales country leader, HPE, said.

“With Converge ICT and HPE Disaster Recovery as a Service or DRaaS, an organization can back up its data and infrastructure to a third-party cloud computing environment that restores access and functionality after a disaster. You simultaneously gain the power of simplicity. And the freedom of flexibility, all while dramatically limiting your risk of data loss and downtime.”

As more businesses expand their operations online, the more critical data security becomes. For instance, the Philippines has seen a dramatic surge in ransomware attacks, with incidents doubling in 2023. A single disruption from cyberattacks can have a direct impact to many businesses, from loss of revenues, productivity, and compliance issues, as well as indirect consequences like brand damage, customer loss, and reputational harm.

Most large corporations have the necessary contingencies to prevent such incidents, but Mr. Romero noted that many medium-sized enterprises don’t have the ability for various reasons. DRaaS seeks to solve this.

“I think money is always a reason. Remember, you have to set it up. You have to buy servers, storage, software, the application, or subscribe to a service. But today the available services are mainly outside of the country, so there is additional cost,” he said.

“Instead of doing that, if you can subscribe on a monthly basis only for what you need, then there’s no upfront cost. There are no maintenance costs, just one monthly bill. And then you don’t even need to have the expertise. The expertise is provided by our ecosystem.”

Converge ICT’s DRaaS offers three service models to cater to varying levels of customer involvement: Self-Service DRaaS, where customers manage the setup and ongoing maintenance, while Converge ICT provides the infrastructure and tools; Assisted or Partially Managed DRaaS, where management responsibilities are shared between the customer and Converge ICT; and Fully Managed DRaaS, where Converge ICT handles the entire disaster recovery solution, offering complete peace of mind.

The ‘pay-as-you-grow’ model, Converge ICT noted, ensures that the solutions are scalable for businesses of any size and can evolve with your business needs. The service maintains data privacy and sovereignty, ensuring that data remains within the country, complying with local regulations. There is no need for hardware or software maintenance, eliminating the management of physical infrastructure, and there are no egress charges, avoiding costly international private lines and unexpected expenses.

In addition to DRaaS, Converge ICT offers a private infrastructure service known as Converge Lake. This includes Compute Lake, providing enterprise-grade compute resources with a flexible subscription model, offering secure, private, and reliable virtual instances or physical machines. Storage Lake offers secure, private storage infrastructure supporting object, block, and file storages, tailored to enterprise workloads with flexible subscription options.

With the launch of DRaaS, Converge ICT and HPE Zerto aims to bring a world-class business continuity solutions to the Philippines, removing much of the complexity that is needed for them to secure their data.

“Before, you cannot even think of doing this. It’s too expensive. It’s too complex and you don’t have the right people. So you have to live with a situation where, any day now, you can be attacked and can lose your data. You’ll be down for one day, two days, three days, a month. Who knows?” Mr. Romero said, adding that they hope to educate more businesses about the value of data security solutions like DRaaS, particularly those that have not had the opportunity to avail of such services due to its prior cost.

“There’s a lot of them. They’re the ones who are getting left behind,” he said.

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By Mhicole A. Moral

In the first quarter of 2024, the Philippines saw a significant increase in its gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.7%, with a yearly growth rate between 5 and 6%. This was mainly driven by public infrastructure developments and increased investments from the private sector. The escalating demand for energy has sparked power supply concerns due to the depleting natural gas reserves.

To power a sustainable energy future, the Philippines aims to further diversify its energy mix by increasing renewable energy share to 35% by 2030 and 50% by 2050.

Aligned with this goal are the efforts of Meralco, which services around 7.8 million customers—making it the largest power distributor in the country. The Manuel V. Pangilinan-led utility is relentless in securing cleaner and greener power supply to continuously meet the growing demand.

In the first quarter of the year, Meralco concluded a Competitive Selection Process for 15-year Power Supply Agreements (PSAs) covering 3,000 megawatts (MW) of baseload requirements in line with its approved Power Supply Procurement Plan.

Meralco has also entered into a 400-MW baseload interim power supply agreement, which will be effective until February 2025. The interim agreement serves as a temporary measure to ensure uninterrupted power supply while the long-term contracts are being finalized and approved.

Following this process, notices of award have been issued to the successful bidders. The resulting contracts are currently undergoing review and approval by the regulator before implementation. These developments ensure that the agreements meet the necessary standards and are in the best interest of its customers.

Meralco has also been investing heavily in the expansion and upgrading of its distribution network facilities. This includes the development of new substations as well as the upgrading of existing infrastructure to ensure that it can handle the increasing demand for electricity.

In line with their ongoing efforts to provide reliable and efficient service to its customers, as well as contribute to the development of the communities it serves, Meralco has successfully completed several projects in the first quarter of 2024.

One of the key projects successfully concluded by Meralco is the replacement of a 100 MVA Power Transformer in Taguig City. This initiative ensures a more stable electricity supply to support the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in Taguig.

In Dasmariñas City, Cavite, Meralco installed a new 83 MVA power transformer at the Abubot Substation. This project is part of Meralco’s ongoing efforts to expand its capacity to meet the increasing power demand in rapidly growing urban areas. The new transformer will enhance the substation’s ability to deliver reliable power, thereby supporting the local economy and improving the quality of life for residents.

Another significant project was the uprating of the Pamplona-San Pedro 115 kV (kilovolt) line, which runs from Las Piñas City to San Pedro City in Laguna, accommodating higher power loads, reducing transmission losses, and ensuring a consistent supply of electricity.

Meralco also recently enhanced the reliability of the Malinta 115 kV Substation in Valenzuela City to prevent outages and ensure a steady power supply.

In line with government infrastructure projects, Meralco relocated a total of 299 poles to facilitate road widening initiatives by the Department of Public Works and Highways and local government units.

Meralco has also relocated 64 poles as part of the government’s Build Better More infrastructure program. This program aims to enhance the country’s infrastructure network, and Meralco’s involvement ensures that the power infrastructure is aligned with national development goals.

Ronnie L. Aperocho, Meralco’s Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer, shared insights into the company’s recent performance, noting a significant increase in power demand across all customer segments.

“The growth in our first quarter sales volume reflects the growing demand for power from across all customer segments with the improving economic prospects,” he said.

“We remain vigilant as we work with energy industry players in implementing demand-side management programs to help lessen the strain on the power grid and continuously deliver stable and reliable service to consumers. We also continue to proactively encourage more participants to join the Interruptible Load Program (ILP), which embodies bayanihan among private sector players, as this proves to be valuable during this critical season,” Mr. Aperocho added.

Growth prospects

Meralco has been helping meet the country’s growing energy needs through its power generation arm, Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGen), which has been strategically investing and developing key renewable energy projects.

Through MGen Renewable Energy, Inc. (MGreen), Meralco has made substantial investments in numerous renewable energy projects nationwide, such as solar farms in Ilocos Norte, Bulacan, and Rizal.

One of MGreen’s most notable projects is Terra Solar Philippines, Inc., which involves a 3.5-GWp solar power plant with a 4,500-MWhr battery energy storage system. The project is expected to be one of the world’s largest single-site solar farms in the Philippines.

To further grow its renewable energy portfolio, MGreen has started construction on two new solar plants: Greentech Solar Energy, Inc.’s 18.75 MWac solar plant in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija, and Greenergy for Global, Inc.’s 49 MWac solar farm in Cordon, Isabela. Both projects are scheduled to start commercial operations in the first quarter of 2025.

In addition to its renewable energy projects, Meralco is also investing in gas-fired power plants and liquefied natural gas (LNG) import and regasification terminal. The company has signed an agreement to acquire an attributable 40.2% interest in the country’s first and most expansive integrated LNG facility in Batangas. The facility includes two gas-fired power plants: the 1,278 MW Ilijan power plant and a new 1,320 MW combined cycle power facility, which is expected to start operations by the end of 2024. The transaction is subject to the customary review and approval of the Philippine Competition Commission.

In January, MGreen acquired additional shares in SPNEC, raising its stake to 53.7% from 50.5%. The company has invested a total of P18.4 billion in SPNEC. The issuance of the Notice-to-Proceed for the construction of the initial 2.5-GWp of the Terra Solar Philippines project is targeted before the end of 2024.

Mr. Pangilinan, Meralco’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said the company’s dedication to supporting the Philippines’ economic development while enhancing the quality of life for its citizens.

“Our growth prospects go beyond creating value for our shareholders. The opportunities we are pursuing are always anchored on the commitment to support economic development and contribute to uplifting the lives and welfare of more Filipinos,” Mr. Pangilinan stated.

“As we continue to deliver stable and reliable service to our customers, we reiterate our pursuit to bring in projects of scale that will boost available generation capacity which we direly need to ensure not just the immediate, but the long-term energy security of the country,” he concluded.

Spotlight is BusinessWorld’s sponsored section that allows advertisers to amplify their brand and connect with BusinessWorld’s audience by publishing their stories on the BusinessWorld Web site. For more information, send an email to online@bworldonline.com.

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