CTO Chats with Eric Nacional, Head of Information Technology & CIO at Robinsons Land Corporation

Before we begin, can you tell us a bit more about yourself and your company?

I serve as Head of IT and Chief Information Officer at Robinsons Land Corporation. I have been with the company for nearly nine years, and I consider this my final stop—I fully expect to retire here.

Each day at the office feels like the first because there are always new opportunities to apply my expertise in supporting the business’s digital transformation. That summarises my title and my experience at Robinsons Land Corporation.

 

Adding to that, could you share a bit of your personal journey? How did you get into IT, and so on and so forth?

Early Passion & Origin:

I discovered my passion for computing in high school, where I was both a varsity basketball player and a budding programmer. Working with green‑screen computers and cassette‑based storage, I learned IBM‑style BASIC and built simple games like tic‑tac‑toe. I was so captivated that I persuaded my parents—despite the steep cost—to invest in my first PC. That early drive led me to pursue Computer Science in college.

Building a Tech Foundation:

Upon graduation, I joined United Coconut Planters Bank as a junior systems analyst. Over 1½ years, I deployed core banking systems and automated workflows. I then moved to Asian Terminals, Inc., where I wore multiple hats: systems analyst, network engineer, email and customs‑system integrator, and architect of their first firewall systems.

Specialising in Cyber and Data Centres:

After three½ years, I was drawn to cybersecurity and seized an opportunity at Trend Micro. Over 14 years, I managed global data center builds—spanning the Philippines, San Jose -California, Munich -DE, Taiwan, and Tokyo-JP —and led cybersecurity initiatives alongside operational teams.

Mastering Voice Tech & Global Support:

Seeking to expand my skillset, I transitioned to BPO with HGS for two years. As Transition Director, I carry-out voice‑technology solutions and stood up a Global Service Desk. Within six months, our team provided 24/7 IT support to worldwide offices.

Leadership & Innovation at Robinsons Land Corporation

Today, as Head of IT and CIO at Robinsons Land Corporation, I’ve established an ITIL‑based service‑management framework, consistently delivering positive audit results. I spearheaded our cloud migration—now 90% of workloads run in the cloud using a cloud‑agnostic architecture on AWS and Azure. I also implemented standards for application provisioning, software development, OS, and databases—enabling rapid, secure digital launches across the business.

 

I’m amazed by how extensive your IT experience is. Now that we are talking about the IT landscape, I know it’s known for its rapid evolution. From your perspective, what are some of the most significant challenges that you have faced or are currently facing, and how are you strategically addressing them?

Identifying the Core Challenge

One of our biggest challenges lies in the skill levels of our team members—a common issue among organisations that rely on managed services. In IT, it’s especially difficult to attract and retain the right talent. At Robinsons Land Corporation, where our core business is real estate, IT plays a supportive role, not a front-and-center position. Consequently, we need a diverse range of IT expertise—networking, storage, business applications, development—but it’s rare to find all those skills in one individual or even within one organisation. As a result, we often rely on partnerships with software development firms and other IT service providers.

Our Strategic Solution: The Foundation Team

To address this, we implemented a Foundation Team model:

1. We hire fresh graduates who are eager to learn.
2. Our core IT team creates technical reference documents—detailed step-by-step procedures.
3. The Foundation Team handles these procedure-based tasks, which allows them to contribute right away.
4. As they gain experience and confidence, they’re promoted to intermediate or senior roles.
5. We then bring in new graduates to fill the Foundation Team, repeating the cycle every year.

The Impact

• We’ve built a scalable pipeline of talent.
• Fresh graduates add immediate value through documented, repeatable work.
• As team members grow, they take on more complex responsibilities, reducing dependency on external providers.
• The Foundation Team is reviewed annually, ensuring a steady flow of motivated and capable talent.

 

Looking ahead, what emerging technologies and innovation opportunities do you believe businesses in the IT industry should be prioritising right now?

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).

Migrating to cloud IaaS (e.g., Azure, AWS) can yield enormous cost savings and operational efficiencies. At Robinsons Land Corporation, we transitioned from physical data centres to the cloud—saving highly noticeable amount annually. We eliminated concerns around aging hardware, cooling systems, and server maintenance by shifting the physical infrastructure responsibilities to our cloud providers. This redirection of resources has allowed our team to focus on business-aligned productivity rather than equipment upkeep.

This mirrors broader industry results: companies migrating infrastructure to the cloud have reported 38–81% cost reductions, depending on workloads and optimisation—and some even achieve hundreds of percent in ROI over several years.

Internal Research & Development.

Even in a non-tech core business, investing in R&D delivers substantial returns—often surpassing the cost of maintaining external commercial licenses.

At Robinsons Land Corporation, our in-house R&D team develops fully open-source backend systems—from operating systems to databases—eliminating third-party license expenses. Last year alone, our R&D initiative returned a more than considerable amount of net gain, after covering the team’s salaries.

This strategy aligns with recent research showing how open-source and internally developed platforms drive significant cost efficiencies and innovation capacity.

Strategic Impact & Recommendations.

To maximise IT value, organisations should integrate:

• Cloud IaaS: Dramatically scale down CAPEX and offload infrastructure maintenance.
• Internal R&D: Build in-house capabilities around open-source solutions, cutting recurring licensing fees and enabling tailored innovation.

 

Do you think that this could be considered one of the mistakes that other companies make, like not doing research and development and not migrating their data to the cloud? Or do you see other IT-related mistakes in other companies?

It’s Okay Not to Build an In-House R&D Team. Choosing not to build an internal R&D department isn’t a mistake. Companies often partner with specialist IT firms to quickly meet business needs. If speed and efficiency are priorities, outsourcing to experts makes sense.

The Real Mistake: Lack of Proper Planning

What can go wrong, though, is jumping straight into a partnership without a clear plan. Common missteps include:

• Failing to define measurable success criteria (e.g., ROI, user adoption, reliability)
• Choosing a vendor without comparing cost versus projected revenue impact
• Deploying a solution before exploring lower-cost alternatives that still meet business needs

These oversights turn a potentially successful partnership into a costly mistake.

Best Practices for Choosing an IT Partner (backed by research): Here’s what industry experts recommend,

1. Define clear goals and success metrics – Know what you’re aiming for and how you’ll measure it (e.g., cost savings, TAT, error rates).
2. Evaluate vendor experience and methodology – Look at their track record, development approach (e.g., Agile), and communication practices.
3. Perform due diligence – Investigate vendor stability, reputation, and fit with your internal processes.
4. Plan for ongoing monitoring and adjustment – Set up KPIs and regular checkpoints for quality, timelines, and budget.

Example Scenario

• Poor approach: You need an app and simply pick one of three vendors without thinking about ROI, integration, or success criteria.
• Proper approach: 
  • Map out business requirements
  • Define evaluation metrics (time to market, cost per feature, defect rates)
  • Choose the vendor with the best overall score—including cost against value
  • Document fallback plans if initial costs exceed projected revenue impact

 

Now let’s go to the future. How do you envision the IT sector evolving over the next three to five years, and what are the major shifts or disruptions you anticipate on the horizon?

AI-Powered Software Development

At Robinsons Land’s R&D team, we’ve automated even upto 75% of coding tasks using open-source AI tools to generate source code. This has reduced development cycles from two months to just a few weeks, and significantly improved quality. Our full-stack developers now spend far less time fixing bugs—AI-generated code often ships with fewer defects than human-written code.

Supporting Industry Trends:

• Gartner predicts 75% of enterprise engineers will use AI coding assistants by 2028, evidencing broad adoption .
• Companies like Meta report that AI tools are cutting development time in half.
• Benchmarks show AI can reduce coding time by an average 35–45% and slash bug and refactoring time by 20–30%.

Customer-Facing AI: Rasa Chatbots

We’ve deployed an open-source AI chatbot via Rasa on the Robinsons Malls website. It’s capable of answering questions like “When will Galleria Mall open?” and is being expanded across other business units to improve customer support.

Towards AI-Driven Business Intelligence

We’re building a data engineering working group to move beyond reactive reporting. With growing data but no current data scientists, this team will enable us to extract predictive insights—shifting from reactive to strategic, data-led decision-making.

These initiatives position us as agile and future-ready, aligning IT with the broader business vision.

 

You were talking about AI and BI analytics, so building on that, are there any specific trends or technologies that you believe will have the most profound impact on the IT industry as a whole?

AI Is Transforming Operations and Workforce Dynamics. AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and code-generators are revolutionising backend operations, enabling faster delivery and strategic execution—often reducing operational headcount, but simultaneously creating new, higher-value roles. My team now uses AI to generate much of our source code instead of manual hiring, boosting efficiency without expanding the developer team. This shift mirrors industry trends: firms like HP emphasise that embracing AI offers a competitive edge, especially for those adapting to its use.

Virtualisation & Cloud Provisioning: Agile, Efficient, Scalable. Virtualised infrastructure—offered through cloud providers like AWS and Azure—addresses provisioning challenges:

• No need for physical servers or networks: deploy applications in under an hour, sharply reducing time, cost, and resource overhead.
• Cloud providers dominate the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) space, driven by demand for scalable and efficient provisioning platforms .

Collaboration and Collective Intelligence: Leadership isn’t a solo journey—it thrives on peer collaboration across sectors:

• Platforms fostering exchange among IT and business leaders drive collective innovation.
• By learning from proven strategies instead of reinventing them, organisations can enhance decision-making, accelerate solutions, and reduce risk.

 

I agree with everything that you said, and it’s also great to hear that what we do has value for senior leaders like you. Beyond the technological shifts, the regulatory environment is also in constant flux. How is the regulatory environment changing, and how are IT leaders navigating these regulatory shifts?

We partner with our management committee to ensure we have a role in critical areas, such as the National Privacy Commission, which mandates compliance with cybersecurity requirements for protecting data and data privacy. We have established a data privacy officer within the conglomerate, with a working group that ensures internal audits are performed for NPC compliance. IT, on the other hand, partners with them to ensure that the digital solutions we deliver and sustain in production comply with National Privacy Commission regulations.

Another area is cybersecurity. We have partnered with our corporate JG Summit working group, which built a cybersecurity team and standardised the cybersecurity technology we use. From our end, we leverage them to provide the day-to-day operations of the cybersecurity aspect. Once we receive reports from them listing all possible vulnerabilities identified by cybersecurity, we immediately take action to resolve those vulnerabilities. In terms of these regulatory areas, I partner with internal working groups that focus on those specific areas.

 

I know it can be hard, but I also think that it’s a constant balancing act between the regulatory and your business. In terms of balance, how do you personally balance the need for innovation with the demand for stability and security in your IT systems?

In terms of innovation, as I mentioned, we invested in research and development, which enables us to continuously produce innovations. For the cybersecurity aspect, we partnered with the cybersecurity team. We provide them with our demands and requirements. Additionally, since cybersecurity is their specialisation, they also provide very advanced solutions. Even if the solutions they provide us are overkill, they offer solutions we would not have imagined until they show us the risks of not using them. With the cybersecurity core focus group, we can maintain our security posture in providing digital services and products. Since we also sell our products digitally and collect bills from our customers digitally, it’s crucial for us to comply with cybersecurity requirements. For instance, the NPC also has minimum cybersecurity requirements for all companies in the Philippines. Having the data privacy office working group and cybersecurity working group enables us to secure our compliance with these two requirements. Having the research and development working group enables us to continuously provide effective and efficient innovations in all areas of the business, aiding their operations, as well as on the security side, because the backend platform is also delivered by our research and development working group.

 

What do you consider to be the most critical skill for IT leaders today?

I would say AI, for sure. Second, it’s not really an IT skill, but rather a strategic business foundation skill. When you get involved in supporting the business, you should have a framework, a strategic framework. When you start to build initiatives, you have to make sure you can calculate the total cost of ownership, measure your return on investment, and provide a measurable solution delivery.

 

Expanding on that, if you could ask one question to all IT leaders today, what is that question?

How did they apply AI to their organisation? They might have some applications in AI that we haven’t thought of, and we could learn from them. Those things are relevant for us now because AI can truly reduce labour costs and effort. With that, there might be more applications of AI that some IT organisations have already implemented, which we haven’t.

 

My next question is, how do you approach mentoring and developing the next generation of leaders within your IT team?

In my case, I practice what I preach. When I do something, I assume my direct reports are also doing the same, or even further improving the strategic effort that I have mentored them on. For me, it’s not about being secretive or not sharing the things I have learned and the things I know would work effectively and efficiently. I love sharing what I am doing, and I want them to do the same because I believe that everything in the team has collective contributions to the team’s success. If one leadership member is not performing as expected, it will create a domino effect on the entire team. For example, I have a service desk, an infrastructure and systems working group, a research and development working group, and a business application working group. If my research and development working group is not delivering as expected, all other working groups will also not deliver as expected because there are dependencies. I practice what I preach to them. At the same time, I always tell them that collaboration and delegation are the most important aspects of teamwork. If you take all the work, you might not complete or deliver. It’s about understanding the role and responsibility in every working group, delegating tasks intended for that working group, and collaborating effectively.

 

Reflecting on your experiences with knowledge-sharing events, perhaps events hosted by The Ortus Club, what’s been the most memorable insight or key takeaway that you’ve actually applied in your work?

From all the events I have attended with The Ortus Club, one thing I learned and leveraged is the notion that I do not know everything. When I attend an event, I always set a condition for myself to be open-minded and try to absorb as much as possible, especially things I have less understanding of. During that time, some leaders were very good at AI and shared their ideas, including the technology platform facilitators. The solutions they shared with us, even though I was not buying their specific solutions, gave me ideas for alternatives. I would think, “Okay, this is a very good solution this company is sharing.” Since I have a research and development team, I would go back to them and say, “Can you do this? Can you find solutions for this? Can you do research?” Then they would come up with similar solutions.

To be more specific, there was this Okta company at an event I attended that provides authentication solutions or access management, and identity management solutions. I realised that was what we were lacking. When I returned, I shared with my team, “Can you look into how we can improve our identity management, like our authentications, instead of leveraging widely used methods? I think we need to further improve our security.” Our team was able to develop an authentication solution. That was a takeaway from one of The Ortus Club events.

 

Finally, for someone attending an Ortus event for the very first time, what advice would you give them to get the most value out of their experience?

I would say they have to be open-minded, and they have to share their thoughts. Try to be more open. Do not be shy about sharing because, in a leadership forum, you can find many attendees who have probably solved the challenges you are facing and can share ideas with you. You can take those ideas, go back to your group, and work on them.