Day: December 30, 2019

The Greater Bay Area (GBA) is perhaps the best contender in becoming Asia’s version of both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. The region is already one of the global tech hubs, and it is home to major advancements in fintech. Since the announcement of the initiative in February this year, it has been well-received in the technology and finance industries across the region.

With a combined GDP of over US$1.6 trillion, and a population of nearly 70 million, it makes sense to closely integrate the region’s cities — namely Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen Zhaoqing, and the two special administrative regions, Hong Kong and Macao — for efficiency in trade and transactions.

Also Read: AI-powered adtech platform ADBRO closes financing round with 500 Startups, eyeing APAC expansion

Investments in technology will greatly facilitate growth in the region and will be a testbed for how effective these technologies will be in the bigger picture. The so-called “Web 3.0” or the “internet of value” focuses on decentralized technologies, artificial intelligence, and smart and connected devices. With a diverse population, culture, and economic systems, these innovations will be the glue that brings together the GBA’s 11 cities within tight integration.

What makes the greater Bay Area attractive?

The GBA’s economic growth and large market size make the region a land of opportunities for businesses in various sectors including finance, real estate, infrastructure and many others, according to a comprehensive report by KPMG. In particular, strong manufacturing industry and tourism will contribute to growth, according to a report by PWC China.

The different cities involved present a region of diverse industries and skills that together make for a strong comparative advantage in manufacturing, IT, technology, global tourism, trade, asset management, and finance.

Compared with the rest of the world, the GBA has already made strong headway in finance, technology, insurance, property and blockchain technology. Some of these industries even outpace their global counterparts. 

Specific technologies that will drive integration and growth

For the Greater Bay Area goals to be achieved, there needs to be adequate integration among the 11 cities. Investments in innovation and technology in these areas will help enhance competitive advantage and promote better integration across the region.

Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies

One such area for investment is in decentralized technology. The nature of blockchain may be the right infrastructure to pursue, considering the 11 cities that make up the GBA. “Blockchain today is like how the internet was discovered over 20 years ago. I am convinced that blockchain will become the infrastructure of the future,” says Shirley Hsu, Chief Finance Officer, Tus Pine Peak Group. She adds that data will be a driver of growth and profit. “It’s a matter of how we can take advantage of this data.”

Integrated digital identity

One reason to rally behind blockchain tech is the opportunity for a user-centric model for decentralized digital identities. With no single city maintaining control over the know-your-customer (KYC) and identification system, businesses and governments across the region can achieve a standardized identification system that ensures the privacy of data and almost entirely mitigates control by centralized platforms. 

KYC procedures currently take up to several days or weeks before completion. A decentralized and standard digital identity system makes it possible for businesses to onboard clients in a faster and more effective manner, ensuring seamless service delivery and huge cost savings in terms of personnel, time and money. 

A number of experts in the field hold similar beliefs in the transformational capacities of decentralized digital identity framework. “We can’t reach the age of 3.0, i.e., web decentralization, unless we create a platform for decentralized digital identities and assets,” says Hans Lombardo, Co-Founder, Blockpass, a platform that decentralizes KYC and identity management. 

“The internet at present is centralized, and data is controlled by specific companies like Facebook, JP Morgan Chase, Google, and other companies in the United States. It is really very important that we have a decentralized digital identity,” he adds.

A decentralized standard for identity management will allow for an easier flow of transactions and remove barriers in resource exchange. This will make it easier for travellers across different cities to transact and travel easily without going through different ID verification protocols.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is another field with transformational capacities to help facilitate growth. Presently, Hong Kong holds a strong position in providing educational resources on AI, as home to two of the world’s top 10 universities for AI research. 

Investing in AI will help attract talent and provide quality AI research, which is crucial to innovation and technological advancement. With adequate advancements in AI, the GBA can provide substantial technical support to various sectors including finance and telecommunications.

“AI is still at an early stage in terms of applications, but as soon as the technology matures, we will see AI-driven taxi, trucks, customer service reps at banks and shops, as well as AI-controlled robots acting as police and security guard joining humans,” shares Aaron Tsai, Founder and Chief Capitalist at MASEx, a global security token exchange.

“Machine learning can simplify and simplify processes, and apply the lessons learned to other areas,” says Pradip Madhanagopal, Risk Audit Partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

A testbed for innovation

The year 2035 has been set as the milestone date for the GBA initiative to reach its maturity. With accelerated investments in infrastructure and technology, there is optimism that the economic potential of the region may be more quickly realized, given its market size, diverse resources, talent, and institutions.

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Entrepreneurs enjoy the privilege of being their own bosses, but they have to carry a lot of weight on their backs and find ways to help businesses grow single-handedly. Reports suggest that there are over 580 million entrepreneurs in the world today and each one is constantly looking for new solutions to improve products or services.

It’s not an easy job in the ever-changing business environment, so you’ll need to be very diligent and agile in order to keep the company alive and kicking in the long run. There is no magic formula to help you grow the organisation easily, but we can identify a few techniques that proved to work well for the majority of successful companies.

In this article, we will focus on those techniques and show you seven features that will make an entrepreneur’s life more powerful in 2020 and beyond. Let’s take a look!

Build your brand

Are you aware of the concept of personal branding? By definition, self-branding (also known as personal branding) is a form of marketing that an individual uses to create a uniform public image that demonstrates his or her values and overall reputation.

Although it may seem irrelevant, personal branding is actually a major business contributor because customers will judge the business based on the entrepreneur who represents the company.

Also Read: Apple successfully changed customer behaviour. Here’s what entrepreneurs can learn from it

According to the report, reputation damage is the number one risk concern for business executives around the world – 88 per cent of them say they are explicitly focusing on reputation risk as a key business challenge.

So, what can you do to build an authoritative self-brand?

The goal is simple – promote yourself through quality online content. You can write LinkedIn posts, website blogs, and contribute to relevant niche magazines. Such activities will prove that you are a trustworthy and knowledgeable professional.

Of course, you shouldn’t over-promote yourself. Focus on content quality instead and let your in-depth insights and analyses speak for you.

Work with your team

The second recommendation is to take care of your team – no matter how big or small it may be. Employee engagement greatly depends on the way you treat them, so do your best to provide subordinates with a comfortable work environment. You can do it in many different ways, but here are some of our favourite tricks:

• Organise team building events to strengthen relationships among employees.

• Invest in joint social activities.

• Invest in fitness and healthcare programs because fitter employees are more productive.

• Let your team members work remotely whenever needed.

• Increase the number of free days and encourage work-life balance in your company.

• Reward employees for successful projects.

• Listen to their business proposals and put their ideas into practice.

All these tactics are fairly simple, but they can do miracles for the overall productivity of your team.

Also Read: 5 financial tips from established to new entrepreneurs that will help you generate a better cash flow

Focus on customer experience

Customer experience is getting increasingly important. As a matter of fact, studies show that customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020. How come?

Well, the only way a business can distinguish itself from the crowd of more or less the same offers is by promoting a more comfortable consumer journey. You should do your best to personalise offers and tailor products so as to fit the needs of each buyer in particular.

No one wants “one-size-fits-all” solutions anymore. On the contrary, personalisation is the only way to improve customer experience, so you better embrace the new trend and focus on every consumer separately.

Create a value system

Another thing you should to do become a better entrepreneur in 2020 is to promote a specific set of values. It will help you to win over new customers and boost employee morale at the same time. It’s not just our opinion, but rather a well-known fact:

• Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of surveyed global consumers prefer to purchase products and services from companies that stand for a purpose that reflects their own values and beliefs.

• Almost 80 per cent of American workers say company culture is an important factor in job satisfaction.

Also Read: Self-success begins with self-confidence

People on both sides of the business spectrum want something they can relate to easily, so you have to pick the desired direction and promote values through the business. It will make you a much more successful entrepreneur and also a much more desirable employer.

Tools for professional development

Digital apps and programmes should not be a novelty among entrepreneurs anymore, but we have to mention this feature just in case you failed to deploy new technologies by now. You can find hundreds of useful tools online, so the choice essentially depends on the nature of your business. However, we can recommend you a few platforms that we enjoy the most:

• Moosend: It’s a powerful marketing platform that you can use to control all promo activities effortlessly.

• Essay writing service: This is one of the best content creation agencies that specialise in all sorts of digital content.

• Grammarly: If you don’t like proofreading, Grammarly will get the job done on your behalf quickly.

• MOZ: It is a highly comprehensive search engine optimisation program.

• Zoho Books: Many entrepreneurs rely on this tool to manage accounting and invoicing procedures.

Best of both worlds

We just mentioned some of the best online tools and apps that you can use to improve business operations, but you should not forget to dedicate some time to offline activities as well. In the world where businesses spend 99 per cent of their time on digital projects, customers would be very excited to see some good old human touch from your side.

First of all, make sure to build stronger relationships with buyers in physical stores. Teach your staff to behave politely and personalise interaction as much as possible.

Also Read: 10 mistakes that new entrepreneurs tend to make and should avoid in 2020

Secondly, you should organise live events from time to time to give a chance to your clients and customers to meet you in person. It is a major business content that can drastically improve your entrepreneurship status. After all, this is why most businesses (31 per cent) believe that event marketing is the single-most effective marketing channel.

Learn from niche leaders

This tactic is far from being a new one, but it will remain fundamental in 2020 and beyond. Namely, every entrepreneur must keep an eye on niche leaders in order to learn new business methods and identify fresh industry trends.

The idea is not to copy/paste the same campaigns, but rather to keep in touch with the novelties and avoid lagging behind your closest rivals. It’s a precious piece of advice that just have to make use of in 2020.

Solo entrepreneurship is never an easy job, especially if you are managing a small team and have to do many different things simultaneously.

Do you think these tips can help you to build a more profitable company? Do you have other interesting business ideas to share with your fellow entrepreneurs? Feel free to write a comment – we would be glad to see your opinion about this important topic.

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Enterprise Singapore and the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (STCSM) have launched the first joint call for innovation projects between the two cities, according to a press statement.

The organisations invited Singapore- and Shanghai-based companies to submit their joint project proposals on the development of innovative products or services with strong commercial potential.

Dubbed The Singapore-Shanghai Joint Innovation Call, this initiative aims to facilitate deeper cross-border collaboration between enterprises in the two cities. It will open up new opportunities for exchange market knowledge and technology interests, and co-innovate solutions together for the global market.

Enterprise Singapore and STCSM will provide funding support for jointly supported projects. The project consortium must have at least one company from each participating country to qualify for funding.

Also Read: Blockchain payment network Terra expands to Singapore with former Uber exec in leadership

The organisations will officially be calling for proposals in February 2020.

The programme is open for companies working in all technological and application areas, with a focus on sectors such as biopharmaceuticals and life science, urban solutions and smart cities development.

According to a spokesperson for Enterprise Singapore, the products, process, or services submitted to the programme “must be innovative, and should have an obvious benefit and added value resulting from the technological cooperation between the participants from the different countries, such as increased knowledge base, commercial leads, and access to R&D infrastructure.”

The Singapore-Shanghai Joint Innovation Call was one of the five MOUs signed at the inaugural Singapore-Shanghai Comprehensive Cooperation Council (SSCCC) meeting in Shanghai in May.

The event discussed the enhancement of collaborations and connectivity between the two cities, in specific areas such as ease of doing business and financial cooperation.

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Early April this year, leadership consultancy firm Zenger Folkman did a study on feedback practices. They discovered that, in fact, a great majority of leaders were “twice as likely” to give positive feedback (at times, sugarcoated feedback that can seem positive), instead of corrective or negative ones.

Which made sense: in another one of their studies, they found that employees actually want negative feedback despite it being undesirable. Negative feedback can highlight blind spots and show employees the way to improve.

The problem comes for the inverse.

Leaders are struggling to give feedback to their employees— but when the situation is reversed, the struggle is even bigger.

And that is understandable: for one, not many think of giving feedback to our managers and leaders. These people are our ‘superiors’ and for the most part, our jobs partly depend on their appraisals.

Two, it is difficult to approach the topic. For instance, if your leader implemented something that actually caused more trouble than good, it can be hard for many to tell him that straight in the face. Three, most of us avoid confrontation.

Also Read: 6 strategies to give valuable feedback that sticks

Why create an opportunity for conflict, when you can simply adapt?

However, there are always things we want to change. There are times where we want to speak up but we do not want to risk offending someone. It is a tricky situation to navigate but it should not be avoided. With emotional intelligence and tact, we can deliver our insight in the most constructive way possible.

Reputation matters

What bothers you may not bother another person— even if both of you are bothered by it, it might be less significant for them than for you. As you scan your workplace, you will most likely categorise people in two ways: those who complain constantly and those who rarely do.

Despite not complaining, these people are observant. They know what bothers them: they simply don’t talk about it.

While those who complain constantly, often go out of their way to make people aware of what bugged them. But typically, it only stays within their own circle, without having insofar a chance for their higher-ups to hear about it.

Problem is, the higher-ups know who are those people that complain constantly, even if they are not aware of the details.

Those who complain the least are always the most effective in giving upward feedback. These are the people that only talk about the bigger issues before going into the smaller annoyances and thus, their words carry more weight.

Also Read: RateIt raises US$5M to expand its real-time customer feedback solutions in SEA

It also the reason why there are loads of write-ups about how those who speak less are generally smarter.

Here’s what to do for both situations:

1. If you’re a stoic and you rarely complain, your words already carry weight. What you need is an appropriate time and place to raise your concerns, with respect to your superior.
2. If you’re a habitual complainer, you will have to be wary of your reputation. Talk about your problems less and write them down: that way, you can categorise which are the ones that deserve more priority. You can also think about possible solutions before going to your leader, which can help direct the conversation and reach a conclusion faster.

Ask for a separate meeting to raise issues

Managers are there for a specific reason: strategy. Unless their job scope covers running the ground, they are less likely to hear all the different complaints.

Few people take their complaints upwards as they want to make a positive impression on their superiors—things only change when there is visibility on new issues.

However, giving upward feedback should be dealt with tact.

Not every leader takes feedback well. Hence, your feedback delivery method depends on your knowledge of your manager. For instance, some managers don’t take criticism well and thus earn a reputation for being ‘prickly’. These are the nuances you need to take care of.

Apart from that, you should:

1. Be mindful of priorities. Are your issues deserving of being in a team meeting agenda? Are they critical to the team or just to a select few? Raise your issues at the appropriate time. Can your manager afford the time during busy periods?
2. Be empathetic. Just like how managers do not know everything about the employees, the reverse is also the same.
3. Schedule separate meetings. One-on-ones work best here. If there are more stakeholders involved, bring the stakeholders into the meeting with the leader as well. Such meetings emphasise only on select issues—rather than waiting till the end of a meeting to share feedback, you can easily go through every necessary detail that could have been omitted if you were to be delayed.

Also Read: This IoT device sends instant feedback of a player’s performance to the coach when he is in action

Focus on your perspective and facts

Frame your feedback in the form of your perceptions rather think of what you would do if you were in your leader’s position. For a leader that is disconnected from the other employees, your perspective can be invaluable.

By doubling down on your perspective you are also realising the limitations of your standpoint. By being empathetic, you can avoid presuming what your leader is faced with.

Like all feedback, it should be honest and data-driven. Be as specific as possible: what is the problem that you want to change and what are the things that went wrong? Emphasise on how it affects you and other stakeholders but avoid speculating:

1. Don’t state why you think this problem exists unless required. It is most likely that you have partial knowledge. Always seek to understand the whole picture rather than going straight in on one part. However, if your leader asks for a suggestion, be tactful about it.
2. Remove assumptions. Rather than ascribe a motive to someone else and get them to be defensive, stick to the facts of the situation.

Also Read: This IoT device sends instant feedback of a player’s performance to the coach when he is in action

When your boss rejects you

It is difficult to predict how someone will react no matter how careful or thoughtful you are with delivering it. Sometimes, you might get bitten as your leader gets upset or defensive about it.

Rather than clamming up after a negative reaction, take this opportunity to dissect the situation. What are the things that went wrong and what can you learn from it? Going forward, you can improve on the way you deliver your feedback specifically to this manager. You can also understand what are the topics beyond his/her boundaries.

The health of any organisation, team or relationship is dependent on identifying and discussing problems. Healthy teams talk about problems freely. They speak up about issues and resolve in tandem with one another.

In contrast, unhealthy teams leave issues unspoken about, which leaves a host of performance problems and potential errors. Eventually, results and relationships will be eroded.

Feedback is never a one-way thing. Between managers and employees, there must always be feedback going back and forth to help everyone improve together. It is understandably tough: we are much more comfortable venting to one another than to give our feedback to our managers—why risk our livelihoods?

Holding our tongue is the reason for accountability gaps. For the gap to start closing, the best way we can do is to start with ourselves.

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First seen on Human+Business.

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas by submitting a post.

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

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