In October 2019, a J.P Morgan survey found that Asia Pacific (APAC) business decision-makers saw a global recession and trade tariffs as the biggest risks for their companies in the next six to 12 months.

With the ongoing trade war having created uncertainty in global markets and supply chains while posing recession risks, it was no wonder that C-suites felt businesses were facing increased risks as they headed into 2020.

Separate from that, an EY report found that APAC businesses were losing the digital transformation race deemed necessary to stay afloat in an Industry 4.0 world.

EY Asia-Pacific technology consulting leader Steve Bingham said, “in a dynamic business environment, it doesn’t matter whether the disruption is a global health pandemic or new competition, bushfires, or Brexit. Agile, adaptable businesses with advanced digital capabilities are best positioned to weather any storm and create long term value.”

Never have those words been truer than now in March 2020, as major cities enter some form of lockdown and shuttering millions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as large corporates. It is important to underscore that businesses need to continue operating in the new work-from-home norm and prepare their organisations, employees, and systems to not just survive the lockdowns, but emerge more agile.

What are OKRs?

In the 1970s, the then-president of Intel, Andy Grove designed OKRs (Objective and Key Results) to guide Intel’s transition from a memory company to a microprocessor company. According to re:Work, OKRs helped employees focus on a set of priorities: communicate priorities, maintain alignment, and make the switch.

OKRs were introduced to Google in the 2000s by investor John Doerr. Alphabet CEO and Google co-founder Larry Page said, “OKRs have helped lead us to 10x growth, many times over. They’ve helped make our crazily bold mission of ‘organizing the world’s information’ perhaps even achievable. They’ve kept me and the rest of the company on time and on track when it mattered the most.”

OKRs provide a simple and powerful approach to set business targets, measure progress and achieve greater success. While key performance indicators (KPIs) measure a single aspect of a business, OKRs help put KPIs and other targets in the wider organisational perspective.

Google, for instance, uses OKRs to set ambitious goals and make them public so employees at every level have buy-in and know the reasoning behind their individual, departmental, and regional OKRs as they pertain to the entire company.

While KPIs alone may reflect a silo-like working environment, OKRs can help teams and individuals get outside of their comfort zones, prioritize work, and learn from both success and failure.

For example, OKRs can encompass both non-KPI key results (such as hiring a VP of sales) and actual, quantifiable KPIs (increase online leads and lead to demo conversions).

So, what is OKR? OKRs, as the name goes, comprises two elements:

1.) Objective: what you want to accomplish on whatever scale and timeline.

2.) Key Results: the term refers to the actionable steps — whose effectiveness can be measured — that form the plan of action to reach the objective.

There are five key OKR payoffs: narrowing the organisational focus on a certain number of objectives as well as a number of key results per objective, alignment of objectives due to the public nature of OKRs, commitment by employees who set up their own OKRs, tracking of OKRs at any point, and stretching of OKRs across the organisation for more ambitious goals.

Why OKRs? Why now?

In 2013, American retailer Sears adopted OKRs in their sales team, which resulted in average sales per hour rising from $14.44 to $15.67, or an average increase of 8.5% over 18 months. This, extrapolated into monthly and annual sales, was a significant jump in productivity.

Meanwhile, Google has grown from a company of 40 employees in 2000 to over 100,000 staff in 2020. OKRs have helped put growth in perspective, especially across new product roll-outs or market expansions.

For a smaller company experiencing an influx in new employees, the public and self-driven nature of OKRs can more quickly facilitate employee buy-in and assimilation into the corporate culture.

In the ever-changing business climate, OKRs help keep companies focused on its stated vision and mission. The ability to track, grade, and update OKRs regularly can also inform employees at every level how a company is cohesively reacting to challenges like digital transformation, trade wars, and pandemics.

For example, one’s objective to increase sales by 10% may need to be updated due to depressed consumer demand, and key results under the objective will need to be upgraded to focus more on online channels for customer outreach.

Due to the wide-ranging nature of OKRs as well as the fluid nature of the business environment, communicating across all levels of the company, the need to update and align OKRs can take up a lot of time that would otherwise be used on core business activities.

Using the right tools

Businesses, small and large, also have varying levels of digital adoption across different departments. Manually inputting OKRs across one software used by the sales department may not be replicable, say, in the R&D departments, in addition to being time-consuming.

These can be addressed with OKR tools such as Profit.co that provide a dashboard overview to employees, middle management and C-suites while simultaneously integrating with software used by different departments.

A holistic OKR software, Profit provides companies a hierarchical view of how OKRs are aligned, as well as allowing businesses to set and manage objectives at a company, department, team and personal level.

Cognisant that businesses today are spoilt for choice in terms of cloud management apps, Profit seamlessly integrates with the Gmail add-ons, Office 365, Slack, Jira, Zapier, BambooHR, Azure Active Directory, and Google Marketplace.

An all-inclusive results management platform, Profit helps businesses manage OKRs (create and monitor OKRs), manage tasks (tracking individual and team tasks), engage employees (employee comments and rewards) and manage performance (real-time reviews and feedback). By integrating all four elements into one software, companies can reduce hassle related to rationalising spreadsheets with different input sources.

As working from home becomes our status quo, centralising all these tasks and processes in a single app keeps the entire company focused on goals communicated clearly through any upheavals in the supply chain or business processes.

Profit has helped clients manage OKRs regardless of industry or geography, ranging from positioning solutions provider Optron, supply chain player Gaea, data analytics business IntellectFaces, to vacation rental company Traum-Ferienwohnungen.

The Profit.co way

Profit is an Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) software integrated with task and performance management directed toward 360-degree organisation governance for accelerated growth while maintaining the best work culture.

For more information about them, visit their official website here.

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We all have been hit by unexpected situations and challenging times. It’s of paramount importance that our organizational goals are still met and risks are mitigated strategically. We have invited global leaders from Europe, The Middle East, APAC and America to share their experience and mentoring on how organizations can execute their strategies and transform their business digitally.

Register to our webinar here to learn more.

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When COVID-19 first struck, I immediately called a number of our most exposed clients to ask them how we could help. 

It is an interesting time because business-as-usual practices have gone out of the window, forcing companies big and small to innovate to survive.

COVID-19 affects everyone, and there is a noticeable shift in the habits and behaviours of consumers, whether they are spending less on travel, retail, or simply staying indoors. 

Business needs have changed in light of COVID-19

Businesses are seeing a fundamental shift in how their workforces operate and engage internally. So those that can innovate fast will be able to weather the storm, while those who aren’t will likely struggle to survive.

It’s apparent that while video will be a crucial form of communication over this period, companies are keen to ramp up their efforts on other types for content to inform their customers and keep their brand in front of mind.  

Adapting business strategies rapidly

Shootsta is headquartered in Singapore which felt the impact of COVID-19 earlier than some of our other regions. So we’ve been able to use that time to guide and even pre-empt the needs of our clients, especially in times of uncertainty. 

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Lifetrack Medical Systems partners Philippines government to identity COVID-19 patients

Teams are quickly becoming remote, and our work environments are changing faster than we can communicate with our teams. We’re working with enterprises to adapt to the situation and innovate how they communicate to a distributed workforce, both internally to employees and clients. 

To facilitate the increasing need from companies to communicate digitally, we’ve now brought forward our plans to expand beyond corporate video. We currently coach and assist companies in creating pre-produced webinars, podcasts and explainer animations, furthering clients’ digital content strategies through Shootsta.  

The need to innovate instead of sticking to tried and tested solutions

We’ve established our reputation as an agile and dynamic company, and our clients look to us for innovative solutions to ensure their businesses face as little disruption as possible.

This also means filming and creating video content in ways that are unusual yet allow them to achieve their business objectives.

Beyond enabling companies to create and distribute video content swiftly, we step in as consultants to enterprises, advising clients on the importance of regular communication to ease worries, engage teams, and establish trust among stakeholders.

We’re already experts at video production. The introduction of our new products will help our clients rapidly deploy new strategies to adapt to what are very challenging times and create more innovative forms of stakeholder communication, through podcasts, pre-produced webinars, and mobile phone-filmed announcements to global teams.

Also Read: Indonesia is ripe for further disruption by tech-enabled firms: Adrian Li of AC Ventures

 New opportunities for business

 The way I see it, every incident presents new opportunities for business. The reality is that with the economic slowdown off the back of COVID-19, companies are now extra careful with their expenditure and investments.

We’ve seen how companies are trimming the fat and taking a lean approach to keep up with changing times. 

We see the actual value of digital transformation that it is not merely a nice-to-have, but a critical need to stay afloat and come out unscathed post-COVID-19.

For those who have yet to embark on their digital transformation journey, now is the time for businesses to make their processes digital, immediately.

To strengthen the trust with their clients, companies need to be in hyper-care mode with their brand and stakeholder relationships. Therefore we’ve taken on the role of risk and reputation specialists, working with our clients to be authentic, transparent, and over-communicative through digital channels. 

Maintain a work-life balance and social interaction while working remotely

Mental health is something I take very seriously, and I prioritise my team members’ overall well-being above all else. There are enough tips and guides out there talking about how employees can stay productive while working remotely at home so I won’t dwell on that.

Also Read: Good vibes only: Sailing through COVID-19 crisis with mindfulness meditation

Instead, I think it is essential that we set boundaries for work and leisure. Especially for those who are used to working in the office, being at home shouldn’t mean we disrupt our entire routine. Some tips I tell my team: wake up at the same time and get ready for work, put on office attire to get into that office mindset, and clock off at the time we normally would.

Being at home means we don’t interact with our colleagues nearly enough as we are used to, and one way we counter that is to schedule casual check-ins with individual teams. Every day, we set aside time for fun conversations and witty banter.

This keeps us sane and helps us stay close-knitted as a company.

For those working with kids in the house as well, I have started a fun arrangement with my daughter, in the same way, we tell her to eat her dinner, one vegetable, one piece of meat, one vegetable, one piece of meat.

I’ve told her I would focus on one section of work undistracted; then I’ll play with her, later work, then play. We need to realise that our family still needs our attention and compartmentalise our lives. 

Tech tools I use to help with productivity while working remotely 

A few apps I love: apps that regularly notify us to stretch and drink water, music streaming platforms to ensure we maintain our rhythm and flow in a new work environment, and video conferencing software to maintain a business-as-usual presence with our clients. 

Also Read: Stressful times ahead: How this e27 webinar will help you keep calm and carry on

Our team is constantly creating videos to communicate important messages internally and externally, and we rely on both our LinkedIn network as well as our CRM database to share the content we film.

I’m also a huge fan of Slack and use that to talk to our teams who are working remotely. Beyond work-related conversations, we take the time to check in with one another, ask about their mental health, and share messages of encouragement to ensure that even when the going gets tough, the tough get going.

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In mid-March 2020, 21 founders from SEA Founders got together on a Zoom call to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on their startups. The top three concerns were delayed revenues, burn rates, and movement restrictions.

In order to preserve the runway, many founders are keeping a close eye on cash flow. Especially the salary cost, which is the largest component of many budgets.

Shorter workweeks, unpaid leave, salary and bonus cuts, and freezing hires are some of the early cost-containment measures already in place.

The Singapore government has also unveiled new support measures in the Resilience Budget, for example, bridging loans, job support scheme, tax, and fee deferments to help businesses stay afloat.

Despite all these measures and the best of intentions, many founders are facing the grim reality of letting some people go.

Yes, that dreaded ‘R’ word. Retrenchment.

Also Read: {Updated} Singapore’s Madison Technologies develops global contact tracing portal to combat COVID-19 spread

Up till now, the startup scene has only seen the growth story. This sudden downturn has caught some founders and their fledgling HR teams by surprise.

I think managing planned exits is a delicate process. The key is to balance the needs of all the stakeholders while minimising disruptions to your core business.

At ConnectOne, we have developed the 3C Model to help founders and their HR teams manage exits: Compliance, Compassion and Communication.

Compliance revolves around laws and regulations that are in place to protect both employees and employers. These include notice periods, severance payments, tax declarations and cancellation of employment passes for foreigners. Startup founders need to be aware of legal requirements in order to manage their financial and reputational risk.

Compassion is the vital ingredient required in any retrenchment exercise. It is emotionally-draining and mentally-exhausting for all involved. From founders to retrenched employees and even those who remain. My advice is that “while many may prefer to remain in the comfortable realm of data and the rationale, this is one instance when founders will have to dig into their emotional reserves to ensure that people exit with their dignity and self-confidence intact.”

Communication is crucial during times of crisis. It’s not a single step — but a continual process. In order to balance compliance and compassion, there are internal and external stakeholders to identify, assess and target messages for.

While this black swan event continues to unfold, let’s continue to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

As a gesture of support to the startup community, ConnectOne will host a one-hour free webinar on retrenchment advisory. This is exclusive for founders, their HR representatives and VC partners only. Register here.

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Most of the startup business owners put a lot of effort into gaining new customers and increasing their sales. But they tend to forget one of the most crucial parameters of monthly recurring revenue or MRR – the ‘customers’. 

This behaviour of customer negligence leads to loss of customers over time which is also referred to as customer churn.

As per the authors of ‘Leading on the Edge of Chaos’, a mere five per cent reduction in customer churn can increase your profits from 25-125 per cent.

Further, studies show that as much as 97 per cent of customers leave companies silently. Even the mobile phone industry experiences a churn rate of 21-38 per cent in a year.

This brings us to another term – churn rate. Churn rate is defined as the percentage of customers leaving a company, in a given period.

But, what is the best way to predict customer attrition or loss? Are traditional transactional analytics still relevant for effective customer churn analysis? How to leverage unstructured data for customer churn analysis? And, what is customer churn analysis, to begin with?

Also Read: How to market your tech startup?

Let us find out answers to all these questions one by one and find out some of the best ways for customer churn analysis.

What is Customer Churn Analysis?

Forbes defines customer churn as an event when customers cancel their subscriptions. It refers to the process of losing customers over a period of time. And the process of analysing customer churn data to measure, monitor and lower the churn rate is called customer churn analysis. 

Let us explore the term and its types in detail.                               

Classification of Customer Churn Analytics:

There are two types of churn analytics:

• Unstructured churn analytics
• Transactional or structured churn analytics

Transactional churn analytics focuses on structured data collected over time to predict, monitor and offer ways to reduce customer churn. Most of the companies opt for this traditional analytical method when it comes to predicting churn. 

However, they fail to realise one simple fact – Customers don’t leave a company or a subscription or an app overnight.

The true answer to finding actual reasons for customer churn lies in the unstructured data which also offers 80 per cent of information about customers. 

Why don’t businesses leverage unstructured data?

Unstructured data comprises data collected via human-to-human interaction such as emails, chats, messages and communication logs. Creating an organised repository of such haphazardly collected information is a herculean task.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Antler pledges up to US$500K in funding to startups battling COVID-19 

Though most of the service and customer-centric companies employ automation and smart tools such as an online helpdesk system to collect data, there is a long trail of customer information and interaction left in different places. Event-generated data such as data generated after product failures etc is yet another source of unstructured data. 

Now, it is clearly understood that the root of customer churn lies in unstructured data. But still, many retention strategies don’t leverage it. Let us understand why.

Almost all the retention leaders are already using some sort of transactional analytics tools. After investing millions of dollars in the traditional analytics models that can predict churn they believe that they already have a churn analytics tool. So, investing in another novel system seems to be out of the question.

Further, the unstructured data has a lot of redundancy and sorting it to form an organised data repository requires a lot of time and effort. 

After having had an overview of customer churn analysis and its types, let us move ahead to find why it is important to analyse churn.

Why does customer churn analysis matter?

Customer churn amounts to a loss of revenue and a higher customer acquisition rate or CAC. Angry customers can spark a chain reaction with their negative feedback which is more than enough to kill your reputation within a matter of days.

Churn works against financial growth and eats up your revenue. Further, acquiring new customers is five to 25 times more difficult than retaining pre-existing customers. 

Also Read: TNB Aura’s special fund to invest US$2M each in COVID-19-affected startups in SEA

Let us try to understand the stats with the help of an example. 

Remember the time when the world-famous automobile brand Toyota recalled nearly nine million vehicles worldwide because of some mechanical issues? It was one of the most trying times for the brand known for its quality cars. More shocking was the way the PR team handled the situation. The brand reputation was in shambles and the revenues hit a record low. Later it was speculated that a vindictive regulation team might have been the reason behind this massive scandal. 

Well, all in all, the brand took a fair enough time to be back on track and the bleak memories of its massive customer churn are still fresh. 

An efficient, robust and smart customer churn analysis empowers you to devise a long-term customer strategy. Using the data you can predict whether your current customer support system is worthwhile or not.

Netflix is a recent customer churn analysis example where the brand used AI-based algorithms to analyse data such as demographics, preferences, watch history and ratings, etc to offer personal recommendations. This boosted its revenue and helped it overcome churn.

Other important reasons to invest in customer churn analytics is to deliver better customer experiences and to optimise services and products in a proactive manner. 

Hence, businesses around the globe invest millions of dollars in customer churn analysis.

After learning the importance of customer churn, let us move on to find the best ways to do customer churn analysis.

Also Read: TNB Aura’s special fund to invest US$2M each in COVID-19-affected startups in SEA

Leverage unstructured data

Invest in an intuitive, efficient and smart online help desk system to record all the communication with your customers in ONE place. Depending on your setup you can either opt for ML or AI-powered data analytics to find actionable insights into the unstructured data such as messages, communication logs, chats, and emails.

Doing this will offer you a direct idea about the customer happiness index and customer satisfaction. Work on the root cause of problems and proactively communicate the results, updates and novel upgrades to your customers.

Takeaway:

All the answers for customer churn lie in direct vendor-customer communication. Employ this information to improve the churn rate.

Choosing the right automation

Invest in automation that employs innovative analytical techniques rather than traditional transactional analytics. Predictive behaviour modelling, AI and ML-powered analytics, and micro-segmentation of customer data are some of the novel practices in churn analytics.

Takeaway:

Upgrade your traditional predictive analytical system and opt for hybrid automation to gather more relevant data. Use Machine Learning for better customer retention.

Look beyond churn prediction

To stay ahead of attrition, it is important to look beyond churn prediction and simple inferences. It is important to identify the first signs of customer lifetime maturity.

Prediction of customer’s lifetime value, identifying customers with high-risk towards churn and proactively working towards increasing the revenue from existing customers are some of the ways to make your customer churn analysis better.

In addition to this, getting customer feedback on a regular basis can help you realise their potential tendency to churn. 

Takeaway:

Don’t limit your scope to predictive churn analytics. Look for more options that can help you identify the customer’s lifetime and value attrition etc.

Also Read: How can startups survive COVID-19?

Proactive customer retention with targeted goals

Go for proactive customer retention even before a customer reaches a high-risk stage of churn. Sending proactive emails, improving product integration and onboarding processes and employing metrics such as ARR (Annually Recurring Revenue) and MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), etc are some ways to fight proactively for customer retention. 

Takeaway:

Devise strategies keeping every individual customer in mind. Instead of marketing and targeting a group based on geographical location, employ smart clique-generating principles to form groups with similar preferences, interests, problems, and expectations.

Humanistic automation approach

As per Forbes, opting for a humanistic automation approach for delivering better customer experiences and tackling churn can give a new life to your startup business. Robotic email responses and pre-recorded customer support messages only make your customers feel uncared for. They don’t feel valued if your customer support team doesn’t show a humanistic side during problem resolution. 

Doing customer churn analysis with AI-powered algorithms can help you in this regard.

Takeaway:

Your customers are human and expect that distinct feel of being valued by another human while using your products and services. Don’t consider the job done by just buying a customer helpdesk. Try to tailor the customer experience as much as possible.

This completes our discussion on the best practices for customer churn analysis. We hope all our readers find thoughtful takeaways from here to fight churn in a novel and better manner.

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The COVID-19 outbreak has affected all of us and disrupted our way of life. It has wreaked havoc in many markets and industries, with its impact on businesses apparent — in terms of operations, sales and headcount.

The communications industry has, undoubtedly, seen its own set of challenges, especially on brands’ reputation and corporate image. The last few weeks have certainly been rough for everyone, especially in the communication industry — we are, after all, the first line of defence when crisis strikes.

A few days ago, we ventured into hosting our very first webinar, where we invited a panel of expert communicators hailing from the startup industry to discuss how to tackle communication challenges and why brands matter more so than ever during such times to remain relevant and trusted during these turbulent times.

When I made the call to some of my friends while thinking about getting them all together for this online panel, Jacquelyn Cheok, Communications Manager, gojek (Singapore) said: “We surely do need some distraction in the midst of all the crisis that has come upon us. This can be educational and we certainly can learn from each other.” That was my starting point.

Keep the channels open

As communicators, our lives have also become unpredictable. The daily news has controlled how our day goes. That got me thinking: Are brands thinking that way? Do they realise that communicating during bad times is as crucial as communicating during good times?

Also Read: 8 ways to position your brand to target the right customers

We work with several startups, some of whom we have seen grow far and wide in this region over the last few years. This pandemic has forced us all to pause, think and absorb. The effect is way beyond just your consumers. It now affects your employees, your partners, and probably even their families. Hence, keeping the channels of communication open becomes more important today.

Prantik Mazumdar, Managing Partner, Happy Marketer, said during the webinar: “Keep the focus on your staff, customers, partners and leverage social media to amplify positive happenings or just ensure your current communication is truthful, positive and helpful.”

Don’t kill your brand

Brands should maximise the downtime wisely by working on their recovery plans, planning for the future with current assets, and utilising the time to remain visible and afloat. This can be done through methods such as website marketing, email marketing and phone calls.

Chope, one of the oldest startups in our local ecosystem and a disruptor in the F&B sector, has been the forefront of this crisis with an estimated 200,000 people in the F&B industry at risk of having their livelihoods disrupted. Being in the midst of this industry, they play a crucial role to better understand the impact on their partners.

Their recent white paper in collaboration with Professor Sheryl E. Kimes, Emeritus Professor of Operations Management at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and a visiting Professor of Analytics and Operations at the Business School at the National University of Singapore, unveiled findings on restaurants’ preparedness for long term impact of more than six months, decline in revenue and reservations, and more.

The white paper also provides advice to restaurants on mitigating strategies, apart from covering key risks and recommendations for F&B businesses on handling unprecedented closures and mandatory measures. This was a responsible step taken by Chope.

Also Read: e27 Webinar: Why silence is not golden

It clearly positioned them as one that cares for its partners, a player that is taking its role seriously. Some of the key findings of this report were alarming — not to forget, this research was done and released before Singapore went into the ‘circuit breaker’ mode on April 7, 2020.

• 93 per cent of restaurants surveyed saw a decline in revenue
• Close to 80 per cent of restaurants reduced casual labour hours as cost-cutting measures
• Chinese restaurants were the most affected, while cafes and alfresco spots proved more resilient
• More restaurants turned to takeaway and delivery but found it less effective compared to targeted discounts and 1-for-1 offers and even special occasions

“Through social media marketing, prioritise the spread of positive messages and encourage discussions of positivity in these tough times. Pause campaigns that do not make sense and allow social media to be another Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) channel,” as rightly put by Heather Cheong, Vice President (Regional Marketing) of Chope, during the webinar.

She further elaborated: “This is the time to protect your brand and price. Never cheapen it as it will be hard to recover. What brands decide to do now will have an impact in years to come. Instead, brands should relook at their partnerships, use this time to engage with companies with deeper resources.”

Being connected is key

This pandemic has surely taught us that being connected is both good and bad. The world is at a point today where it took no time for a crisis like this to spread far and wide. Guess those are some of the ill-effects that come out of a digitalisation process.

The irony as communicators is that we can’t live without it today. Neither can a business. It is the only way to reach out to employees, customers, media, and the public at large, especially at a time like this.

Also Read: How building a brand personality helped us up our startup game

Hence, it is important to use this time to understand that digitalisation will be the new normal or sure remains a critical communication platform untill the virus situation stabilises. Nothing compares to physical connection, but until we are able to do so, the digital world is giving us options to stay connected nonetheless.

Pause, think, read, listen and analyse

Aptly put by Prantik: “This breakdown has surely forced us to feel the need to pause, think, read, listen, analyse and strategise because marketers usually are always too busy ‘doing’. It is important to look at a macro view and realise every bit count.

The governments in this region have set great examples for us to follow by keeping the channels of communication open. This has surely helped us to stay positive and better understand the reality.”

For any communication professional, crisis communication is probably the best on-the-ground learning process, but who would have thought it would be of this scale and nature. This may turn out to be the most challenging case study any marketer in any part of the globe has worked on during their professional career.

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