Digital tools can provide a great way to promote the company culture by creating informal places online for collaboration, communication, and transparency

With the fast-paced implementation of technology and evolving work expectations, understanding the needs of your employees has never been more critical.

Globally, the work environment is changing rapidly.

With the fast-paced implementation of technology and evolving work expectations, understanding the needs of your employees has never been more critical.

Over the past five years, searches for workplace well-being have doubled, with the growing need to create workspaces driven by purpose.

Deloitte’s Future of Work examines improving culture and employee experience in the top-five transformational tactics for workplaces, alongside building connected teams, personal development, and design-thinking.

So what is the culture in today’s changing environment, and how is it measured?

Frei and Morriss give a great example of what culture is in a practical sense:

“Employees make hundreds of decisions on their own every day, and culture is our guide. Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is, of course, most of the time.”

It goes back to purpose and finding a greater understanding of the “why” of everyday work.

In a team environment, culture often shapes the ways we communicate.

Create shared workspaces

We’ve all heard of flexible and remote working as an option for our team, but what does this look like practically?

PwC says, by 2030, the majority of the world’s workforce is expected to find flexibility, autonomy, and fulfilment in their job. Business leaders can make this a reality by creating spaces online where employees can have full access to resources and channels of communication they’d otherwise have in the office environment.

Also Read: How to deal with the challenges of a distributed team

This goes beyond emails and should be tailored to both the job role and industry. For example, if you are working in a design firm, you need access to a suite of tools, templates, etc. Often these resources need to be cloud-based to allow instant access via a simple security log-in.

Offer anonymous feedback

If you are trying to create a culture of honesty and trust where teams are eager to give each other feedback, you may want to consider encouraging company-wide feedback.

Doing this online is an effective method to streamline the process and offer a safe space for honesty. By incorporating a feedback form into a familiar setting—such as a collaboration tool, email system—you can formalise the process.

Also Read: Why team-building exercises won’t make your staff more productive

Let your employees know that the business is looking to improve continuously. Remaining anonymous can make feedback easier for people, and when the feedback loop is hosted digitally, you remove all barriers to honesty.

Implement democratic decision-making

Historically, decisions are often made from top to bottom, with little input from team members. Online polling tools offer a channel for staff engagement. The key here is to ask questions you want answers to. If you engage your team for the polls and don’t release the outcome, it can have quite the opposite effect creating a hostile and untrustworthy environment.

Also Read: 6 tips for building a successful software development team

Questions don’t need to be to make critical strategic decisions, instead pick topics that will put a smile on your team’s face. Ask for opinions, for instance, on new office spaces, themes for next month’s team workshop, etc.

Incorporating the polling process on an ongoing basis will improve your team’s connection, and in turn, creates a happier and more engaged workforce.

Don’t plan your digital strategy online; instead, take it offline. Challenge leadership to decide how you want your employees to perceive the company. Invite team members to the table. Finalise goals.

Digital tools are used to promote collaboration, engagement, and transparency; ultimately improving employee happiness.

When used effectively, digital tools can create unique moments online and engages each employee directly with the company’s vision.

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After a successful business launch, it’s time to really get to work, for long-term success and sustainability

The biggest challenge these days doesn’t seem to be in starting a new business, but sustaining it against the onslaught of market changes and new competitors that emerge every day.

Yet, as an angel investor, I still see too many new business owners who are convinced that their biggest challenge is to get money to start, and once launched with some initial success, they can relax.

In my other role of business advisor, I see examples often of startups that may have taken success for granted too early. A recent high-profile one, Theranos, the blood-testing company, had no trouble getting customers, but promised more than their technology could deliver, Another, Shyp, an early on-demand delivery platform, blamed their demise on premature scaling.

The keys to sustainable success require you to retain that sense of urgency, focus, and vigilance after the launch that you felt during the development and early funding stages.

That starts with initially building a solid business strategy, including a strong support system for scalability, long-term leadership, and adaptability. In my view, this strategy must include the following elements:

1. Define and communicate a purpose and destination

 

Your constituents can’t plot a journey if they aren’t sure where they are going or why. For a successful launch and scalable growth, they need to establish many checkpoints, with metrics to assess their progress and alignment with the vision.

Don’t let that communication fade post-launch.

Also Read: 7 military principles you should apply to your business strategy

2. Build and nurture a team culture of trust and leadership

 

You and your business won’t be able to sustain a position of leadership without everyone on the customer-facing team being willing and able to emulate your lead. That requires trust and respect from all, as well as constant coaching and development to keep them committed to following you.

3. Demand continuous innovation to keep up with change

 

Change is the only constant in a successful business, to keep up with new competitors and new customer demands. Innovation must be applied to your business model, your processes, as well as your product offering. Aim to obsolete your own products with new, before competitors do it.

4. Make sustainability a key design objective for every step

 

You may start with prototype products, but you need rock-solid processes for successful growth and agility. Seek out the best practices in the industry, and improve them for your business. Recognise that every successful journey is long and hard, so don’t cut corners now.

5. Hire the best people and continually upgrade your team

A big mistake often made in the rush to scale is to shortcut the hiring and training processes, to get out there fast, assuming that the team can learn on the job.

Look for team players who can collaborate with others, and make sure everyone has the training and tools to do the job.

Also Read: With this three-pronged system, you can create a sustainable business strategy

6. Seek out strategic partnerships and collaboration

 

When you finally get that funding for scaling, it may be tempting to do everything yourself, to keep control and do it faster.

The problem is that you may not have the experience or connections to jump into new customer segments, manufacturing, and distribution. Capitalise on what already exists.

7. Focus on existing customer retention and repeat business

 

For sustainable growth, don’t forget that, according to data from the field, it is five times as expensive to gain a new customer than retain an existing one, and a returning customer purchases 30 per cent more items and brings in three to seven times more revenue per transaction.

8. Build your brand equity and relationships with customers

 

As a startup, you have no brand recognition, but long-term sustainability requires a powerful brand.

These days, brand equity means relationships with more customers and a more memorable overall experience. Your brand-loyal customer advocates can be your exponential marketing.

9. Never stop hunting for new opportunities and new markets

 

Initial success breeds complacency. While a laser focus is necessary to get your startup off the ground, long-term success requires a broad and ever-changing product line, target audience, and geographic focus. Don’t be a “one-trick pony” that fades into oblivion as time passes.

Also Read: 5 mistakes to avoid when building a business from scratch

Congratulations are definitely appropriate for a successful new business launch, but it’s not the time to relax or take your eye off the ball. A sustainable business, with long-term success, is a different and never-ending challenge, requiring additional strategies as outlined here.

Don’t wait for a business crisis to get started. As many have found out, recoveries are not always possible.

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A previous version of this article first appeared on nfinitiv.

Image Credit: Adrien Olichon on Unsplash

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How ADB Ventures’ Fintech Challenge Vietnam seeks to empower and embolden the country’s Fintech ecosystem

Southeast Asia’s widespread smartphone adoption rates coupled with its massive economic growth has resulted in a mushrooming of tech startups across the region. Southeast Asia’s growth rate is almost double the world’s average of three percent, with countries like Vietnam scoring even more than double (7.1%) the global average according to The World Bank. As such, it comes as no surprise that tech startups are blossoming here and there.

While early startups focused on filling other verticals like ride-hailing and commerce needs such as Grab and Gojek, these have quickly branched out in recent years into the e-wallet space. The move to fintech is a concerted effort by many aspiring startups to fill the gap in access to financial services — as many Southeast Asian people and SMEs remain unbanked, instead choosing to transact through more traditional means.

It is estimated that around half of Southeast Asia’s 650 million people still do not possess a bank account, while around 450 million people do not have access to lending services. Given the differences in regulation and culture across the 10 Southeast Asia countries, fintech startups have looked to smart partnerships with brick-and-mortar banks and other financial institutions to get off the ground.

For Vietnam, inward remittances from its four million-strong diaspora globally have placed Vietnam in the top 10 countries receiving remittances from abroad. Remittances totalled a whopping US$12 billion in 2015 alone. Successful tech startups in Vietnam primarily engage in e-commerce, fintech, and online services, and now the country is home to the third-largest startup ecosystem in Asia, populated by 3,000 startups.

Since 2016, the Law on Technology Transfer has made it easier for local startups to access tech from abroad and the Decree 38-ND-CP provides additional legal protections to startups and provides increased access to state funding.

Fintech Challenge Vietnam categories

With this supportive regulatory backdrop and a thriving ecosystem, the Fintech Challenge Vietnam — spearheaded by ADB Ventures, the ventures arm of the Asian Development Bank — is a unique chance for fintechs to scale quickly in the local market with support from the State Bank of Vietnam and some of the country’s largest financial services providers.

This second edition of the programme calls on startups from around the world to craft solutions to 11 “challenges” Vietnamese financial players face across three categories: Big Data & AI-enabled Analytics, Financial Services Outreach, and Cyber Security.

In the Big Data category, challenges include the balancing of enriching customer data without violating data privacy, leveraging non-traditional credit data to improve credit scoring models, leveraging alternative data for identity verification, and channeling Big Data & AI to craft micro insurance and micro-investment products.

Under Financial Services Outreach, the challenges include encouraging customers to use mobile banking channels and improve customer experience, educating communities with low financial literacy on financial management, developing user-friendly financial products for unbanked or under-banked communities, and making cashless payment solutions convenient to use for consumers and financially attractive for merchants.

The Cyber Security aspect of the programme calls for startups to address challenges such as how to evaluate transactions to enable effective monitoring and detect unusual/abnormal activities, preemptively detect, identify, and predict financial cyber threats and cybercrime. Lastly, this aspect of the programme seeks to leverage technology to develop a secure and traceable exchange of customer information among authorised users.

Startups with solutions that serve to improve financial inclusion are also invited to apply by the September 25 deadline. Top fintechs will receive funding for their pilot programmes, as well as an opportunity to build networks with strategic and technology decision-makers at the country’s leading commercial banks.

ADB Ventures’ Role in Fintech Challenge Vietnam

ADB Ventures has already, via its Mekong Business Initiative (MBI), launched nine corporate innovation and accelerator programmes focusing on travel tech, fintech, agritech, smart city solutions, and female entrepreneurs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

Dominic Mellor, who designed the MBI and now heads ADB Ventures, says the Fintech Challenge Vietnam builds on these previous programmes while staying true to ADB Ventures’ goal to generate a sustainable impact on climate, gender, and inclusive growth.

“Our Impact Labs aggregate demand for technology in specific industry verticals like finance. We identify a handful of large corporate partners and uncover opportunity statements where their bottom-line technology innovation needs intersect with opportunities for sustainable development impact. Then we source startup technologies from all over the world and introduce them as potential solution providers to our corporate partners.

“Similarly, the Fintech Challenge Vietnam is helping banks source fintechs for greater financial inclusion. These fintech solutions help banks reach more customers with an expanded portfolio of financial products and services while giving SMEs, women, remote, and rural populations better access to finance,” Mellor enthused.

ADB Ventures also runs an interrelated SEED programme that makes funding available for pilot partnerships between the corporate partners and startups it has matched up.

“One reality in emerging markets is that corporates are risk-averse. A proof-of-concept trial in combination with a market pilot could be costly and involves risk. Our SEED program provides capital to de-risk the pilot phase, allowing new tech to be deployed and scaled faster,” Mellor explained.

Thriving on partnerships and solutions

For the Fintech Challenge Vietnam, ADB Ventures has aggregated opportunity statements from four leading commercial banks (TP Bank, UOB, Vietcombank, and VietinBank) and telco payments platform Viettel, all in partnership with the Vietnam’s financial regulator, the State Bank of Vietnam. Now, ADB Ventures is looking for fintechs from all over the world to introduce to these corporate partners as potential solution providers.

To help de-risk investments for corporates, ADB Ventures and its investment partner VinaCapital Ventures, have earmarked up to US$500,000 in SEED pilot funding. Another sponsor, Mastercard, will send two winning fintechs to attend and pitch at Mastercard’s customer event at the 2019 Singapore FinTech Festival.

Following the close of applications on September 25, shortlisted fintechs will be announced on September 30. These fintechs will then have the opportunity to pitch at a Demo Day on 7 November in Hanoi, which will then be followed by pilot testing from November 19 to February 20, 2020.

“The Demo Day audience will include representatives of the State Bank of Vietnam, commercial bank and telco executives, investors, and leading accelerators managers. A panel of independent judges will award cash prizes to three growth-stage and three early-stage fintech companies,” Mellor said.

He further explained that the Fintech Challenge Vietnam is looking for fintechs that can help corporate partners ‘do well by doing good.’

“Your application should show not only how your fintech solution promotes financial inclusion, but also how it can add value to our corporate partners’ operations,” he said.

Interested startups can apply here. All application details are available on the official Fintech Challenge Vietnam website.

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Featured photo by Asian Development Bank.

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These five growth hacks will help startups of all sizes attain faster growth without breaking the bank

 

According to CBInsights’ analysis of major startups’ failure, lack of market need and poor marketing is responsible for more than half of all startups fail.

If there is no demand for what your startup offers, it is bound to fail. Worse, even if there is demand, your startup is bound to fail if you’re unable to gain traction.

Growing your startup, however, does not have to require breaking the bank. Below are five cost-effective growth hacks guaranteed to supercharge your startup growth:

1. Leverage the power of viral giveaways

One of the most powerful growth hacks that you can use to rapidly grow your startup is the use of viral giveaways. 

A noticeable case study is that of a freelance writer and programmer Josh Earl. Earl wanted to grow subscribers to his newsletter and decided to use a giveaway.

For his giveaway, he decided to offer a free license to the Sublime Text software (valued at US$70). When people registered for the giveaway, Earl didn’t just stop there, he gave them a “lucky URL” that they can use to invite others to join the giveaway.

Also Read: This startup is introducing Thai cuisine to Chinese market –via mail service

The more people they invited, the higher their chances of winning the giveaway. As a result, participants in Earl’s giveaway automatically became brand ambassadors and had an incentivize to share the lucky URL on Facebook, Twitter, and to their network.

To ensure a successful giveaway, you want to focus on three things:

1. Make sure your giveaway price is relevant to the audience you want to attract.

2. Make sure people are incentivized to promote the giveaway (for example, inviting more people increased an entrant’s chances of winning).

3. Create as much awareness as you can about your giveaway

2. Exploit the power of referrals

Dropbox is one of the most impressive examples of growth hacking ever. Dropbox’s referral marketing system is so powerful that they went from 100,000 users to 4 million users in just 15 months.

That’s a 40 times increase, or a doubling of users every three months. And it’s all thanks to referrals.

What made Dropbox’s referral system so powerful and what can you learn from it?

An amazingly good product. Dropbox’s product was undoubtedly better than that of most of its competitors.

A referral system that gives users an incentivize to actually invite others; most referral programs are designed in such a way that users feel they will lose when they invite others (since these other people will share the same limited resources). Dropbox’s wasn’t.

The Dropbox referral system was clear: up to a limit, you get 500mb extra space for EACH user you refer. Talk about a real incentive!

The process of referring users was made extraordinarily easy; besides providing a custom referral link for all users, Dropbox also made it so that you can share this link with a click by sharing on social media or importing a list of emails.

By clearly analyzing the above key traits of the Dropbox referral engine, and designing yours accordingly, you can also design a solid referral system that will drive your startup growth.

3. Tap into the power of push notifications

Do you know that the average click-through rates of push notifications are 7.8 per cent? This is according to Accengage’s study of over 50 billion push notifications sent to 900 million mobile users.

By contrast, the average email click-through rate is about 2.5 per cent according to data from Campaign Monitor.

While email marketing has long been touted as one of the most important inbound marketing strategies, the facts indicate that push notifications deliver more than 3x as many clicks as email marketing.

Push notifications are naturally more effective because they go more directly to users’ computers or mobile devices as opposed to emails in which users have to login first. It’s also impossible to have fake push subscribers since you have to subscribe with an actual device.

Also Read: Times Internet acquires viral content curator app Viral Shots

If you do not have a push notification strategy yet for your startup, it might be a good idea to do so now.

4.Work on your website speed

Do you know how much a one-second delay would cost e-commerce giant Amazon?

According to Amazon’s own internal calculations, that’s US$1.6 billion every year. While that seems massive, many startups suffer similar revenue loss but on a much smaller scale.

Research shows that:

1. 53 per cent of people will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

2. A one-second delay in a page’s load time can result in up to a 7 per cent decline in conversions.

3. Page speed is a major factor used by Google to determine a site’s search engine rank and AdWords quality score.

While many startups do not see having a fast website as a growth hack, the above statistics show that having a slow website could automatically be costing you about half of your visitors, a good percentage of your conversions, and good organic and ad search rankings.

Actively optimize your startup website to be a lot faster. Target a page load time of fewer than 3 seconds. Start by ensuring you are on the right web host. The analysis shows that your web host can significantly impact website performance. Take things a step further by using a CDN to ensure your website loads fast globally. You can also enable caching, minify CSS, and use file compression to ensure a much faster website.

5. Develop an SEO strategy

Do you know that 93 per cent of online experiences begins with a search engine and that search engines are responsible for 300 per cent more traffic to content sites compared to social media?

While SEO might appear old school, it could be one of your most effective growth hacks if done right.

Here are some SEO tips for you:

Also Read: 8 SEO tools most used by bloggers and marketers in 2019

1. Create key, comprehensive content resources aimed at answering common questions potential users have.

2. If you don’t have a blog, start one and update it regularly. Businesses with blogs generally get more links and consequently enjoy better search engine rankings.

3. Build links. In a lot of cases, your SEO is only as effective as the kind of links you can get. Get high-quality links through outreach, guest posts, content syndication, and media features in your industry.

 

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Technology and design play a big part in sustainability

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that buildings in different geographies consume energy differently.

We all know that everything from sunlight, the wind, ambient temperature, air quality, humidity and time of sunrise/sunset to the topography of a commercial building invariably affect how we use HVAC and Lighting. In other words, the location and environment of your building determine the way your building consumes energy.

And yet, there is a good chance that you have overlooked the importance of geography when planning for energy efficiency.

Has your buildings’ energy efficiency strategy been customised to your building’s location? Does your building automation system integrate the nuances of your building’s geography and the climate and use them to deliver optimal energy efficiency?

Unless your building automation system is ahead of the curve and is predictive and proactive, chances are your answer to these questions is a big ‘No.’

In effect, in the absence of a balanced approach, your building isn’t equipped to actively and passively reduce energy usage while maximising comfort.

How do location and climate fit into the energy savings formula?

Did you know that a 1 per cent increase in temperature leads to a 1.17 per cent hike in energy demand in hot climates? Cooler climates, on the other hand, actually reduce energy consumption as temperature increases.

Trees, landscaping, and hills can provide shade keeping buildings coolers in hot, humid climates while they act as heat insulators in cooler climates.

A building’s heating energy consumption is also directly proportional to wind speed and direction. More the wind, more the heating and cooling load. Shorter days would mean more dependence on artificial illumination, and so on.

In brief, each location needs different measures for lighting, heating, cooling, and ventilation to keep buildings comfortable.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution!

The variations in these climatic and geographic elements from one location to another make a one-solution-fits-all approach to energy management inadequate, leading to energy wastage and increased energy costs.

Also read: Restorative Innovation requires a change in mindset, but can bring about sustainable benefits for present and future generations

To combat these inefficiencies, what you need is an intelligent building automation system that understands the behaviour of your building and its dynamic environment.

It should be capable of culling insights from weather forecasts, learnt behaviour of your building and patterns of climatic changes in your building’s environment. It should combine these insights with a real-time data feed from your building to draw a unique, customised energy efficiency strategy that ensures minimal energy consumption and maximum occupant comfort.

The perfect energy management plan not only incorporates technology that’s sustainable, but it also takes the inevitable environmental elements into account. A state of the art building automation system or energy management system should be able to:

1. Optimise energy efficiency, comfort, and better air quality by knowing when to leverage the benefits of outside air for free cooling.

2. Harness IoT and cloud computing to maximise free cooling by predicting needs via live weather data.

This strategy significantly improves comfort by optimizing diffuser discharge air temperatures and reducing room temperature variations.

3. Democratise temperature control so that every room enjoys precise, efficient, zone-controlled comfort that is automatically adjusted to factors such as the angle of the sun, shade, weather forecasts, etc.

The system would know how to regulate airflow accordingly and ensure you get the temperature you desire without compromising comfort anywhere.

4. Examine the orientation and geographical placement of your building and combine that with the local weather forecasts and sunrise/sunset times to maintain real-time lighting schedules and ensure your system only runs when it needs to.

Geographical & climatic considerations are not only critical for a customised energy management plan but also in the context of energy efficiency across multiple sites in the country/world.

How do you accurately determine Building 1’s energy efficiency vs. Building 2, a similar building in another location? How do you evaluate which one is performing and what corrective measures are required?

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