Industry Electric distribution Company Founded in 1903, Meralco is the Philippines' largest distributor of electrical power. Employees 6,000 IT staff 220 Annual IT Budget US$16.5 million

Working quickly to meet the tight deadline that was given, Camacho and his team made major changes to bill computation and bill formats to ensure that all 4 million customers received a refund.

Besides the necessary back-end procedures that had to be undertaken, the IT department also saw to the installation of additional terminals at branch offices so as to accommodate the influx of customers claiming their refund.

But Camacho may face his biggest challenge yet in the coming months. "In the next few years, the electric industry in our country will be deregulated," Camacho said. "With this, new rules and implementing measures will be introduced. In IT, we have to ensure that all our application systems and the entire ICT infrastructure are ready to support our internal clients' business requirements."

So far, the company has identified four key issues that will require IT support. First, the ability of the company to comply with the many regulatory changes; second, the ability to quickly address customer requirements; third, ensuring productivity of personnel; and fourth, the increased vulnerability of information assets.

Therefore, together with his team, Camacho will spend the next few months building up the capability and productivity of staff, increasing the level of information security, and providing IT services in a more cost-effective manner.

When told that ZDNet Asia had selected his company as one of Asia's best users of IT, Camacho said credit goes to everyone at Meralco.

"This is an honor not only for me but for the entire company as well," he said. "Although we feel that we have so much more to do to support our ever-growing business requirements, especially with the many changes in the electric industry, we really appreciate that all our efforts are being acknowledged by distinguished IT enthusiasts and critics belonging to prestigious organizations such as ZDNet Asia."

Indeed, success starts with the right attitude. "Our systems programmers, systems administrators, database administrators, analysts, programmers, engineers, technicians--all our IT staff--are very dedicated," Camacho noted with pride.

He also attributed success to "Malasakit sa Kompanya", which refers to "concern for the company", one of Meralco's corporate values. "[This value] is truly manifested by our IT people in every project that we pursue. I believe that without their commitment and dedication to work, all of our endeavors would not have been as successful," he explained.