The bank aims to transform itself into a “tech-based banking institution” but that is not the end of the story

There are many reasons why I am always excited about the conversation in the e27 Telegram Group. But most often, it is because of the mentally stimulating discussions and thrilling leads that we might uncover there.

This morning, a member posted a news article by Bisnis Indonesia about a recent plan of an Indonesian private bank to fundraise through rights issue mechanism. Called Bank Artos Indonesia, the bank is set to issue a maximum of 15 billion shares (priced IDR100 per shares).

With the new funding, the bank aims to transform itself into a “tech-based banking institution”.

Okay. But why is this so special?

It is special because official documents stated that 51 per cent of the bank’s shares will be acquired by Jerry Ng (through PT Metamorfosis Ekosistem Indonesia) and Patrick Walujo (through WTT), two investors who have been known as prominent tech investors in the country –and perhaps the region.

Senior banker Jerry Ng led Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional (BTPN) for a decade, in which he managed to grow its assets by ten folds.

Also Read: gojek introduces local content streaming GoPlay, adding more to its super-app ambition

BTPN itself can be considered as one of the most successful banks in Indonesia in terms of transforming itself into the digital era. According to a research by iPrice Group, its mobile banking platform Jenius is in the top five list of most used e-wallet services in the country, beaten only by the likes of Go-Pay, OVO, DANA, and LinkAja.

Ng is also listed as one of the investors in New Retail startup Warung Pintar’s Series B funding round.

Patrick Walujo himself was a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs & Co and an associate at Ernst & Young. He founded Northstar Group, who is widely known as an early investor in ride-hailing giant gojek.

Can you see why we are excited already? If not, I will give you a minute.

Done? Okay.

First of all, it is important to note that Bank Artos is only set to have its extraordinary general meeting on September 30.

No details have also been announced about how Bank Artos’s “tech-based banking institution” is going to look like.

Also Read: AIA Indonesia takes part in gojek’s Series F funding in a strategic partnership

But if we are looking at gojek’s past acquisitions, particularly with consideration of their super app ambition, there is an apparent pattern of its ambition to build a fintech ecosystem. Its e-wallet service Go-Pay already reached the top position of Indonesia’s most popular e-wallet platforms; it seems only natural for them to look towards digital banking next.

Especially since recently its competitor Grab has been reported to consider merging its e-wallet service OVO with DANA, the result of a joint venture between Ant Financial and Emtek Group. They will definitely need an extra punch in their attack plan.

Warung Pintar itself is a promising startup that merges the offline and online sphere by enabling digital transactions for warung owners. Apart from that, it also counted OVO as an investor.

This acquisition might lead to the rise of a more powerful digital banking ecosystem, led by these two startups.

Yes, several challenges remained. Indonesian regulators have not reached the level of openness like its counterpart in Singapore, who have announced the upcoming issuance of five digital bank license, aimed for banks who services are done completely on an online platform.

There might be some limitations in how a digital bank can operate in the country. But it has finally taken the first step to get there.

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Image Credit: Uray Zulfikar on Unsplash

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Your motivation to lead is what will determine what kind of leader you will be and how well you will lead

“Why do I want to be a leader?”

The answer to that question is significant: it determines how well a person will lead.

For many, the reason why they lead is often a mixture—many will proffer a mix of extrinsic motivations (e.g. career progression, social-economic status) and more intrinsic, internal rationales (e.g. obligation to serve, believing in the organisation’s mission). Sometimes, the leadership role is thrust upon them without them knowing: such is part of professional development. Often, the reasons why they lead are usually predominantly extrinsic.

Groups and leaders exist in almost every corner: from a small, unassuming elementary school to publicly-listed tech giants, it is clear that having great leadership is instrumental to success in any context.

While the demand for leaders is inherent in the nature of our world, the supply of good leaders is simply not meeting the demand fast enough.

As technology advances, demands for all-rounded, knowledgeable leaders are ever-increasing. Companies seek to develop their leaders from within, and companies that help companies to develop spring up from every corner—the leadership development industry is a US$366bn industry.

That’s about 8 times larger than the Big Data industry.

Ironically, as spending goes up, more criticism for the effectiveness of leadership development programmes appears. According to Michael Beer et. al, such programmes fail because people will simply revert to their old ways, as written in a Harvard Business Review article.

In a McKinsey article, Pierre Gurdjian and other authors criticised such leadership development programs, noting that lack of context, underestimation of mindsets and failing to measure results make up the reasons as to why such programs fail.

On top of falling short of expectations, most companies are also poor at recognising a person’s potential to be a great leader.

Great leadership is born from a mixture of nature and nurture — different blends of personality traits form different leadership styles, but the experience is what gives them the competency.

Also Read: 6 leadership techniques for business growth acceleration

For example, introverted individuals lead very differently from extroverted individuals, but they are not necessarily great leaders from the start. Failing and experimenting along the way is what will level up their leadership competency—hence the term “nurture”.

While nature and nurture are huge factors in determining how well one leads, knowing why a person leads is paramount.

Extant leadership research has begun paying increasing attention to finding out why people lead. Also termed motivation to lead (MTL), it is an individual construct that strongly affects leadership processes and behaviours. This construct is a culmination of many different factors, from personality traits to internal motives.

Even though there is research dating back to 2007, scant knowledge in how much the motivation to lead can affect a person’s leadership capability has prompted researchers to look into industry-specific effects.

For instance, it was found that when authority was distributed in individual hospital departments, physicians are less efficacious in their work, according to this study in the International Journal of Human Resource Management.

Having more motivators ≠ great leadership

Many people have different combinations of motives to lead. As mentioned above, extrinsic and intrinsic motivators both come into play. For most, it seems intuitive and reasonable to assume that having a combination of both factors results in having committed, high-performing leaders — after all, the more motivators you have, the less susceptible you are to performing poorly so as long as the motivators exist.

This Yale study disagrees.

Over 14 years, Amy Wrzesniewski and her team analysed and observed over 10,000 cadets at West Point, also known as the United States Military Academy. During this period, the team studied these army leaders from their initiation to graduation and well into their careers.

The team examined the motivations behind why these people attended the Academy and became Army leaders, as well as their performance and potential as leaders following their graduation.

For instance, a person identified with early promotion potential will score higher on the ‘leader performance scale’, as he was deemed capable of leading at a higher position by his immediate and higher superiors.

Also Read:  Identifying leadership gaps in your organisation

Though it is common to find that people with internal, intrinsic motives performed better than those with external, extrinsic motives for their service, the study gave an interesting insight: those with both internal and external rationales are not on par with leaders that are predominantly motivated from within.

More external motivators ≠ great leadership

Considering that many studies have examined using incentives to influence behaviour, it may seem reasonable to assume that adding more incentives would influence positive behaviour in humans—the flaw is that it works in theory, but only in practise if we were lab rats.

For instance, the Veteran’s Health Administration (VA) has leaders who are predominantly influenced by internal, intrinsic factors; they desire to serve America’s veteran. In 2014, the White House and the Obama Administration had to step in to reform the scandalous healthcare system: it was broken, and it rewarded unnecessary performance bonuses.

“VA loves to tout its bonus program as a way to attract and retain the best and brightest employees,” said then-Florida Republican Rep. Jeff Miller.

“Unfortunately, oftentimes the employees VA rewards with thousands in taxpayer-funded bonuses are not the type of people the department should be interested in attracting or retaining.”

The rewarding program got so overboard that a bill was passed in 2017 to ban VA from using any funds in the legislation to reward senior executives.

Clearly, with more extensive external incentives — and if left uncontrolled — the people lost sight of the purpose of the organisation.

Here’s the bigger question: “How do we develop our leaders?”

Leadership development has always been split between two schools of thought. Some programs emphasise teaching leadership as skills to create high performance, thereby being easier to measure. Others underscore a value-based model, where they teach leadership as a complex moral relationship between the leader and the follower — thus being difficult to measure.

From the studies, it shows that external motivators often fail to motivate, especially within leaders. Those who lead primarily from value-based motivations outperform those who lead with additional rewards.

Companies must be extra meticulous: external consequences should not become external motivators. Performance bonuses from completing a big project as a leader are great, but it does not mean that the leader is being rewarded for being a leader.

If leaders who adopt external justifications—such as an increase in shares, better pay— are developed by companies, they are less likely to be as successful as those who seek to lead for more internal, intrinsic reasons alone, even if they are not being developed.

For all leaders, asking yourself “Why do I want to be a leader” will be telling; what you answer, as it turns out, will be indicative of how well you will lead.

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Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Kobu Agency

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With improvements, leveraging on education technology for heightened quality, and accountability for assignments and exam processes no longer remains a dream

The internet is indispensable. It has changed how the world works.

Let’s take a look at the education sector for example. Information for research has become instantaneous.

It may seem like an age ago, but less than two decades ago, doing research required many hours spent in a library, which was not really the most efficient way to do things.

Most resources would be in print-only; academics and librarians were heavily relied on to provide concise information.

Technology is changing the way that we learn, information is also more abundant to the masses. Breakthroughs of new technology innovations such as A.I. and Blockchain are giving more opportunities for the Edutech sector to grow.

Let’s dig deeper into how Edutech can boost learning in the digital world.

Personalised learning tools

To help make learning more efficient, there should be personalisation of subject content. Additional reading of current affairs allows students to be well-read beyond their textbooks. The expansion of their world view also builds critical thinking, an essential skill in daily life.

Streamlining topics can also help minimise the time wasted on irrelevant materials, more so if the subject matters are catered individually to each student. With such customised content, students can skip redundant content and concentrate on the most useful topics to help them understand concepts.

Existing companies such as YouTube or Google are already recommending content based on user profiles. However, the recommendations are mainly dependent on algorithms that are not necessarily customised for each learner.

Rather than just one media site or platform, having an online learning platform with interactive features such as narration, music, speech, and short videos would help students understand learning objectives in an engaging manner.

By this, it should not be just the machines churning out automated responses, but for assessors to be able to analyse how each student grasp concepts and this can be done through a customised educational profile for each student.

Deeper offline-to-online assessments analytics

The advancement of handwriting and object recognition is also another indication that predicates an enhanced offline-to-online (O2O) learning experience in the future for students. Students will soon be able to do their own workings and writings on paper, to have it analyzed and processed digitally by a camera.

For example, US Edutech company Osmo offers a system that uses a clip-on mirror to allow a device’s camera to recognise and track objects and movements. The system can identify real world items such a child’s handwriting, or the way the student arranges the various toys, analyzing these signals, and converting them into real time data and information.

Also Read: Edutech is the much needed big thing we need to work on, a panel discussion at Echelon Asia Summit 2017

While these games are entertaining and educational for beginners, there is a gap in O2O learning for older students, especially in the areas of assessments and feedback.

The existing hands-on learning games have their limitations on some scientific and mathematical concepts which are a lot harder to demonstrate (e.g. Integration or Order of operations). Unsurprisingly, abstract concepts tend to be the difficulties students face while studying for a major exam.

Firms such as Photomath and Socratic are already filling the needs partially by providing instant solutions, and have proven to be popular among its user base. They might be lacking in some areas, nonetheless, their software extends critical to turn offline assessments or homework into more meaningful data. The outcome will help students prepare for tests and exams with a better understanding of concepts.

Blockchain technology to reduce fraud and improve efficiency

Blockchain has been an important asset in our technological advancement, and especially in our fintech landscape. Blockchain technology’s foresight to detect various types of risks, including cheating, score manipulation and cybersecurity threats ranks superior to traditional examination procedures.

In May 2019, Singapore announced a blockchain certificate system with 18 education institutions.

The utilisation of blockchain would assist in delegating responsibilities in a more efficient way, such that unnecessary repetitive labour is curbed. With more e-certificates now being given prior to utilising blockchain such as the SkillsFuture courses, the blockchain exam system could be used to create a decentralised cryptographic tamper-free ledger.

This new structure will allow the exam committee to administer, track, record, transport and publish the results faster by removing many steps in the traditional approach. With the streamlined setup, candidates can receive their results and take the next step in their learning journey sooner.

Minority report: education version

In the movie Minority Report, a specialised police department apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge provided by three psychics called “precogs”. The “precogs” are able to peer into the future actions of criminals and provide the information to the police.

The police are then able to arrest the criminals before the crime is actually committed. In the world of education, the “crimes” are the mistakes hindering a student and our “precogs” will be the A.I. that predicts the learning challenges students will face, even before encountering them.

We have already developed an A.I. model that is able to predict the chances of students answering a particular question correctly, even without them actually doing the question.

Also Read: One roof, all possibilities at the heart of Bangkok

We believe that the next advancement in Edutech will be the ability to provide corrective measures to eliminate a student’s weaknesses, thus saving a lot of time that would otherwise be spent on doing questions they have doubts in.

These pre-emptive measures can be in the form of watching a video, listening to a podcast or playing a mini-game. A collection of these measures would be similar to a revision book personalised to a learner.

The Future of classrooms?

This is not to say that technology will completely take over the classroom.

Technology is an important and crucial tool, but its role has and always will be to support the human teacher in his or her lessons. While the machine will be able to analyze, teach, and zoom in technical aspects of learning, the teacher’s role to guide, nurture, and inspire students has always been relevant. Perhaps even more so in an age where human interaction is constantly on the decline.

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Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit:  Element5 Digital

Contributed under Neo Zhizhong, Founder of Geniebook

 

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 Influencers know their audience better and by having them in the planning phase will undoubtedly increase brand awareness

For the longest time, we were used to seeing only celebrities fronting brands and businesses. With the emergence of influencers, the presence of these “regular people”, yet, with significant influential power became refreshing to the audience and business owners alike.

To say influencers were a calling to brands and businesses for marketing campaigns would be an understatement. They are about as holy grail as rain in a drought. Audiences can relate better to the ambassadors, and business owners were able to explore new opportunities, with the potential of reaching a more targeted audience.

Or at least when the influencer trend first got picked up.

Back in 2009, blogger Bryan Boy (third from left) pictured front row at a fashion show alongside the iconic editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour (fifth from left). In the period where bloggers were trying to get themselves taken seriously, Bryan Boy’s appearance at the front row gave confidence to the blogging industry.

We saw influencers taking up front row seats at fashion week, jet setting off to tropical destinations on private planes and getting all glammed up walking the red carpet for movie premieres.

This is on top of possibly getting paid to feature a product on their social media and receiving freebies from brands. With the dream lifestyle portrayed to the entire world, do we dare wonder how the influencer industry eventually became a billion-dollar industry?

With everyone trying to get a piece of the dream lifestyle, recent exposés have begun painting influencers in a different light. While it is not a sweeping statement of all influencers, the few rotten ones are the reasons why some marketers and brands are becoming sceptical about engaging influencers for their marketing campaigns. How do you find the right influencer for your brand amidst the uncertainty?

Go micro?

Experts have claimed that micro-influencers or nano-influencers are the next best bet when it comes to considering one for your marketing campaign. What are micro-influencers, you wonder? They are influential individuals with a following of about 500 to 10,000, or if in Singapore, it’s 5,000 to 20,000 followers.

Compared to macro-influencers (10,000 to 1,000,000 followers), surely the latter would be able to reach to a broader audience. However, experts have it that marketing right now is more than just mere exposure.

To get actual returns, it is about time that brands and businesses look into how to create an impact on the audience and convert them into sales.

A study has also shown that micro-influencers, though with lesser followers, can achieve 7 times more engagement with its audience compared to influencers with a higher following.

This study simply means that the small community that the micro-influencer cultivated is genuinely interested in his/her content and basically, ‘quality over quantity’.

How high would you go?

When engaging celebrities, who are also social media influencers like Selena Gomez, it is expected for companies to have to fork out a hefty amount, knowing their status. Think it is cheap?

How about USD$800,000 per Instagram post! If you think that is a massive amount to be spending on an influencer alone, try Kylie Jenner where an Instagram post would set you back USD$1million. More established brands often opt for celebrities because of the budget they have and also to maintain a reputation for its wider (like international) audience.

Image: Singapore influencer, Deekosh with a paid partnership Instagram post with LEGO Singapore for their then latest LEGO movie. For an influencer with a following of about 200k like Deekosh’s, per Instagram post could go up to SGD$3,000

Not everyone has such deep pockets. This is probably the reason why brands do not mind considering bloggers/influencers, or influencers-turned-celebrities if they need one that has the same influence power to Gomez’s and Jenner’s tier.

Take comedian, Lele Pons, for example. She initially found fame on the now-defunct app, Vine, before moving on to YouTube. Just last year, the 23-year-old was signed to Universal Music. With a following of 36.7million on Instagram, Pons charges a whopping USD$144,000 per sponsored Instagram post.

While that might seem like a lot for someone who does not really have a “full” presence, (like out of 10 people in a room, probably only one knows of her existence), it is still a lot more affordable than engaging a celebrity. And just like micro-influencers, her followers are more niche compared to one of a celebrity’s. If you are considering deep engagement and your product has the same brand proposition as your candidate influencer, you can consider engaging them.

Spot a fraud

Of late, both local and international mainstream media have highlighted on influencers and the constructed growth of their pages.

Apparently, a survey that was conducted by HypeAuditor revealed that almost half of our local influencers have mangled with their social media accounts using artificial methods– such as buying followers, likes and comments to create engagements on their page as yet another content.

But fret not, there are a few easy ways to spot whether an influencer has an engaging community in their account. For starters, we can:

1. Check out the number of followers and compare it against the average likes on its posts

2. Look out for the verified tick beside their name

3. Look through the comments section to feel for vibes on engagement with followers

At the end of the day, with regular posting and creative content, anyone can be an influencer – literally. Like knowledge, content is power. Influencer marketing is also more than just slapping the influencer’s face on your products or poster.

Having the right influencer to match your brand will help you to amplify your message further. The only question is, do you know if you have chosen the “right” one?

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Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit:  Caroline Attwood

This article is contributed by Adrian & Badriah from Be known. This article first appeared here.

 

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A rat race player has no time to wonder about creative solutions to different problems

I wanted to think over my entrepreneurial journey and share it with other fellow entrepreneurs.

Once a year, I reflect upon the year that has passed. Sometimes startup entrepreneurship has become part of the larger rat-race of society. What began as defiance against a society built on neatly parcelled careers and raises, became a successful, popular subculture, and in doing so, re-merged into the rat race.

Just ask yourself if you, like me, have felt anything like the following:

On career path fallbacks

1. You are comfortable with the idea that if your startup does not work out, you will get a job at a tech company thanks to the strength of your startup experience

There is confidence, and then there’s complacency. I won’t lie. It’s been creeping in.

2. You view the outsourced projects that you are working on as more pressing and important than the success of your startup

Airbnb had their Obama O’s and Cap’n McCain’s. The lessons is that sugar is sweet, but if you have that instead of a whole meal, it will kill you with time.

3. You worry that decisions you make as a startup founder may not look good on your CV

Many factors can motivate a worry that a badly viewed mistake can affect your public image. None of those worries will help you make the right decision, though.

4. You worry about offending potential partners or acquirers more than the customers that you are missing out on

Especially true if you have a personal relationship with someone in the offended organisation. It takes a mental shift to be ok with the idea that you will have professional rivals, and on purpose, so that you can succeed.

5. You find yourself thinking a lot about the occasional job offer that comes your way through LinkedIn

I’m pretty confident that a lot of startup founders and senior employees get offers through InMail because I received a few. Thinking about them makes me aware that I’m wondering which will get me ahead furthest in the rat race. I learned to view them as an opportunity to reverse-pitch what I’m working on instead. Try it.

Also Read: Growth is a dangerous vanity metric; Here’s what your ideal launch plan should be

On measuring success

6. You unconsciously benchmark your startup’s growth against your peers in the same or adjacent industries

This really can’t be helped when they appear in the news as much as you do. However, paying attention to it is another way of getting into a rat race. Besides, startup growth comes in spurts. Smooth growth charts are a lie.

7. You unconsciously seek out meetings with corporate leaders more than you seek out new customers

High-powered meetings are exciting! Powerful figures also have the means to lend you a hand. If you found that you met more executives than customers in 2016 though, you may need a rethink.

8. You find yourself talking exclusively about growth and revenue in interviews

Aside from being a poor presentation, it reflects a focus on score-keeping again. Besides, metrics ought to support an argument, not be the argument.

On finding opportunities

9. You see a conference speaking opportunity as a profile-building exercise

By this, I mean a personal profile. A good way to know if you are a victim is to ask yourself how many slides about your background did you have at your last presentation? It ought to be zero, with incredibly few exceptions.

10. You secretly wish that your larger competitor would just buy you already

Everyone wishes for an exit. However, if it occupies a lot of your thoughts, perhaps you are in it for the wrong reasons.

On lifestyle

11. You have to be the highest-paid person at the company since you are the founder

Though it’s common to be the highest-paid person at the company, sometimes an opportunity to hire someone amazing will present itself, and for a lot of money. I don’t know if I could do it, but a founder who is ok being paid less than some of his team is saintly, and outside of the rat race.

12. You opt not to explore a new overseas market because the temporary relocation would really cramp your lifestyle

Moving someplace where the quality of life is lower is a step backwards for those keeping score.

13. Your friends all work in startups but not one of them is also a founder

Nobody ought to be told how to live their lives or pick their friends. That said, the rest of us draw our lessons from how you live your life and pick your friends.

14. You don’t understand why other entrepreneurs won’t just chill out more

Being out of the rat race is hard work. A race has objective and rules. Entrepreneurs reject those rules in favour of creating our own. That’s twice as hard as just playing along.

15. You invest your savings the same way that your peers in corporate jobs do. Do you see your life turning out the same way as your peers in corporate jobs? I didn’t think so. But perhaps subconsciously you do. Why else would you take on the investment risk profile of a corporate employee when you aren’t one?

On competition

16. You think that the coming downturn in your space will affect you and the old-school incumbent equally

This is a problem because you see yourself in competition with established, old-school incumbents. You aren’t. Aside from the different scales that both operate at, seeing yourself in competition with them draws you into a destructive race against them.

17. You think that the massive growth in your space represents a great growth opportunity for you and the old-school incumbent equally

Explosive growth also explodes problems. It can entrench bad practices in the name of profit, and turn your company into another corporate treadmill. You can win the rat race, and still lose the spark of defiance that led you to choose entrepreneurship in the first place.

Also Read: 8  startup lessons I learnt from sailing in Yangon’s Inya Lake

On achievements

18. You want to get an MBA to further your career (even though you are the founder)

I find this baffling. People don’t use most of what they learned in school at work, regardless of the job or level of education. So an MBA won’t make you a better entrepreneur. I can only guess that subconsciously some entrepreneurs expect to be back in a job where an MBA matters.

19. You tell people about the terrific things that you have achieved, not what your team has achieved

Being self-centred is awful in many ways, and one of them is as a way to grow a personal profile instead of a company profile. It shows a focus on self-aggrandizement and corporate CEOs that we love to loathe.

20. You believe that if there’s no authoritative blog post written about how to do something, it probably isn’t worth doing

There is an unbelievable amount of material written about every aspect of a startup’s operations. Do you fall victim to this? By doing so, are you stifling your own creativity in service of efficiency and KPIs?

Also Read: How to be a great boss: Lessons for startup founders

I have a minor confession to make.

There are a fair few mistakes on this list that I have made. 2017 seems as good a time as any to try something different, like writing for its own sake, and not just content marketing. More sharing and less measuring. Being a startup entrepreneur is something special, and I’m going to remember that.

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Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Benjamin Elliott

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