GROWTH comes from knowing that the sky is the limit and it can only get better from where someone is at this point in his life, and Ionos has effortlessly portrayed this throughout the development of its business.Ionos Philippines Inc. held its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, March 24, 2022 for its newly renovated office space on the 15th Floor of the i3 Building at the Cebu IT Park.Opening the event, Ionos Philippines Inc. chief executive officer and Ionos Group chief operating officer Hueseyin Dogan recounted the beginning of the firm’s investment here in the Philippines, sharing how he had faced a certain issue within the organization that had to be dealt with immediately and commended the professionalism of the customer service of the country. He also highlighted the pride Filipinos uphold toward their culture, tradition and family and how this has inspired him and the team to take an interest here.The Origin of IonosIts initial startup began in1988 under 1&1 with its primary aim to provide an efficient way for people to use and understand information technology. Upon building its goal for multiple companies to leverage up-to-date digital technologies, 1&1 combined web hosting and applications with ProfitBricks’ cloud infrastructure solutions to customers, becoming the Ionos that people know today.Ionos is the largest European hosting provider, with a total of 10 brands, approximately 3,800 employees around the world and 60 nationalities. It is also a member of the United Internet organization.Its services include everything that companies need to be successful in the cloud: from domains, classic websites, do-it-yourself solutions and online marketing tools to full-fledged servers and cloud infrastructure solutions.In 2005, Ionos expanded its reach here in Cebu City through an in-house call center named Ionos Philippines Inc., which works in conjunction with the UK and US offices, as well as the German headquarters for further support and guidance.Currently, there are over 440 employees in the Cebu division.The Future of TomorrowWith the company’s main goal of providing efficient and effective web-hosting services and products, one of the beliefs and values it continues to uphold in its company’s culture is first-class customer service. Ionos ensures that it delivers both best-class products and best support to its clients and consistently puts its clients and customers first and takes their concerns and issues seriously. It does this by having highly skilled and well-developed leaders.Pierre Pauline Yrastorza, general manager of Ionos Philippines Inc., said newly hired representatives undergo an intensive 10-week training and assessments to ensure they are equipped with the proper skills and knowledge, enabling world-class customer service. New and incumbent leaders on the other hand, continuously receive skills trainings and workshops that expose them to realize their full potential in preparation for higher responsibilities.“The people cycle, their life journey here in Ionos does not stop in training alone in the classroom; it goes on because we do have different platforms for training and development until such time we have a pool of leaders that we can create and get easily if we need leaders to run our business,” she said.Furthermore, she expounded how the company had to think outside the box by tailor-fitting its existing materials and utilizing different platforms, such as Google Meet and Zoom, upon conducting training for the new hires, especially during the peak of the pandemic. Despite how challenging it was at first, the company eventually managed to work around it and still provide digestible information and knowledge.Hueseyin Dogan, Ionos Philippines Inc.’s chief executive officer and Ionos Group’s chief operating officer, elaborated on the company’s strategies and tactics upon developing the set of technologies and softwares and responding to the client’s concerns, as well as for the internal team.He said, “there is one single question, which is the most important when it comes to people and customers: ‘Would you recommend us to someone else?’ This is how we make sure that we follow market trends, we provide the best e-business solutions for our customers and we understand what the customer is really looking for, and for our people as well.”Additionally, he explained the importance of digitalization, especially during the pandemic, and the different opportunities that await people and their corresponding businesses. He also mentioned the one-stop solution Ionos provides for all digital needs, from domain to digital presence, up to cloud infrastructure.With the multiple divisions of Ionos stationed around the world, it is only essential for methods and resources to be utilized rightly to ensure the growth of the company in different areas. One way that Ionos has done this is through seamless and transparent communication.“We are passionate with our teams, so we have to provide them with the best collaboration tools so that our colleagues here in Cebu can easily interact with the colleagues in Germany, the colleagues in the US. And digitalization is something that we have pushed forward, especially through the pandemic time, we make such significant investments in those tools,” Dogan said.Dogan has also highlighted how the company guarantees that its employees have highly equipped laptops to fully interact with everybody wherever they are and have easy access for them as a means of providing their internal staff enough equipment and tools for collaboration and support.Moving forward along with the demands of the new normal, Dogan proudly stated that Ionos is set in terms of digitalization and is equipped with the best tools to fully support all scales of businesses. He emphasized one of the company’s pride in having highly skilled workers, and one way of attaining this is by looking for new profiles such as software developers, engineers, cloud experts and many more.Moreover, Dogan stated the importance of diversity and how female leaders are highly encouraged within the company, and the contribution that they bring to the growth of the organization.With the mandate of the city government for businesses to physically operate once again starting April 1, Yrastorza shared Ionos Philippines Inc.’s preparation for its employees by ensuring that all of them are fully vaccinated and are given antigen tests every two weeks. At the same time, the company deploys vans for its employees in terms of security and transportation, with most of their schedules following the US Standard Time.The event was graced by the presence of the Mayor of Cebu City, Michael Rama and vice-consul for the Royal Danish Consulate in Cebu City, Atty. Mary Christine Florido. 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