By Justine Irish D. Tabile, Reporter
BUSINESS-to-business software provider Sprout Solutions Philippines, Inc. saw better employee retention, engagement and productivity from companies that have automated their internal processes.
“So, on the basic level, we automate a myriad of functions within a company and make things more streamlined and more efficient,” Sprout Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Patrick Gentry said in an interview with BusinessWorld.
“But the impact of that is what’s important, which is a better employee experience, which then impacts employee retention, employee engagement, employee productivity, the main levers of growth for businesses in the Philippines,” he added.
Mr. Gentry said it is important for businesses to invest in the human resources (HR) and payroll management of their companies.
“We are still a country that is adopting technology to solve our problems. So many companies still struggle with very manual processes around HR and payroll,” he said.
Businesses in the Philippines still make use of manual processes such as filing leaves using carbon paper and manual payroll computation, which, according to Mr. Gentry, cause delays and are time-consuming for both employers and employees.
Sprout offers a “Software as a Service‚” suite of tools that businesses in the Philippines can use to automate their processes.
Among its 1,000 clients are CloudEats, Kumu, and the investment arm of Globe Telecom, Inc.
According to Mr. Gentry, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed a lot of businesses to digitalize their operations.
“I think the pandemic kind of forced a lot of companies who hadn’t thought about remote access to things like vacation, leave balances, and pay slips, and these kinds of things forced them to rethink their approach to these processes that they had kind of taken for granted before,” he said.
In the next five years, Mr. Gentry said he sees more companies in the Philippines seeking to improve their internal processes through digital tools.
“I think the Philippines is an amazing place and companies are really hungry to help their employees live better lives and Sprout is one of the keys to unlocking that,” he said.
