There are several exciting milestones that FlowerStore has achieved within the past few years.

Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for the Southeast Asian startup ecosystem. But for some, it actually opened up doors of opportunities. In May, as Metro Manila underwent a lockdown as a consequence of the global health crisis, online flowers and gifts platform FlowerStore Group actually managed to pull off a successful Mother’s Day campaign in May.

As most offline flowers and gifts retailers were closed, the startup seized this opportunity and managed to deliver tens of thousands of flowers to customers.

In August, at the height of the pandemic in Southeast Asia (SEA), the company announced its second office in Vietnam, a market that they have entered in 2019. Starting off in Ho Chi Minh City, FlowerStore expanded its presence to Hanoi.

“We see that from a demographic point of view it is pretty similar to the Philippines. But at the same time … the marketing costs are actually way lower than Indonesia, and the labour costs are way lower than Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia,” FlowerStore founder Saul Molla says.

In this interview with e27, Molla explains how the company sets itself apart and breakthrough a market in a challenging time.

Also Read: BloomThis CEO Giden Lim on the power of flowers and working with a co-founder spouse

A budding potential

FlowerStore Group was founded in July 2018 in the Philippines with the goal to bring affordable flowers to the emerging market.

This year, the company says that it sold out its 20,000 Valentine’s Day delivery slots one week before February 14. The milestone has encouraged the company to increase its Valentine’s Day slots to 100,000 next year.

“Being able to scale up at this level while generating significant positive FCF has always been a challenge in the industry due to high customer acquisition costs (CAC) and promotions to attract consumers. FlowerStore’s strong P&L due to its direct access to the producers will continue to help the company achieve its goals,” it explains in a press statement.

It also stated that its revenue continues to surge while generating positive EBITDA and Free Cash Flow (FCF) unlike traditional fast-growing e-commerce companies in the region.

According to Molla, the company’s focus on pricing and customer experience help them to get ahead of the competition. In addition to providing affordable flowers and gifts that were sourced directly from farmers and suppliers, it also tries to adjust to unique user behaviour in the market.

For example, cash-on-delivery (COD) remains a popular payments option for many markets in SEA. But considering the fact that most customers are buying flowers for gifts, FlowerStore recognises that it would be strange to have the flowers delivered to the recipient’s door and the delivery man asks for the payment.

“Basically, what we do is send one rider to pick up the cash from the customer … And then with another rider, we deliver the order –it is all about making it a seamless experience for the customers. This is something that has received very good acceptance from the market,” Molla says.

Also Read: FlowerAdvisor is building a million dollar business in flowers and gifts

Blooming to the future

Prior to founding FlowerStore, Molla was previously known as the CFO and Head of Business Development of Lazada Philippines, a position that enables him to get a good idea of the e-commerce scene in the region –and what it takes to win it.

With a background in aerospace engineering, he came to the Philippines in 2016 from Spain. He cited boredom of the European market as the reason for his move.

“Flowers and gifting are vertical that is already established in the developed markets. But it’s still completely unattended in SEA, without any market leader,” he explains.

Molla credited his experience at Lazada for enabling him to generate strong customer demand for FlowerStore within the first two years of its operations –especially with floral and gifting e-commerce industry being highly underpenetrated in the region.

In 2019, FlowerStore raised a US$1.5 million seed funding round led by “local family offices with large stakes in the agriculture and real estate industries.”

The company used the funding to fuel its Southeast Asia expansion plan and to strengthen its gifting category capabilities.

This year, FlowerStore plans to continue its regional expansion plan.

“We have reached some kind of a sweet spot which we actually weren’t expecting until now … we are at a scale that allows us to have a kind of flywheel of a business, a business that is generating money, that allows us to continue expanding,” Molla says.

“I thought that there was also a good moment, in the sense that it is good to bring kind of positivity to the community when, just a while ago, I was reading about another e-commerce in Indonesia closing down,” he continues.

Today, the company has over 150 team members and delivers thousands of orders across the Philippines and Vietnam.

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Image Credit: FlowerStore

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Singapore-based proptech startup Ohmyhome has announced its official launch in the Philippines, its third market after Singapore and Malaysia.

The company’s full suite of property services, including professional real estate agents and mortgage to renovation, will be available in the country.

It said in a press note that the expansion will bring in several benefits for Singapore property buyers and investors, including an avenue for sourcing real-estate investments in the Philippines.

Also Read: Can SEA’s proptech come back to its pre-COVID-19 glory? Experts speak

Conversely, with the Singapore listings accessible to house hunters in the Philippines, Singaporean homeowners and landlords will be able to reach potential tenants and kickstart negotiations earlier.

As part of the expansion, Ohmyhome will be applying its Machine Learning formula to in-market data to ensure “greater accuracy” for matching potential homebuyers and home tenants, while offering more granular insights into the property market.

Ohmyhome targets to have 2,000 listings and 40 properties transacted in the first quarter of its launch.

Started in September 2016 by sisters Rhonda and Race Wong, Ohmyhome  connects buyers and sellers directly at no cost. The platform boasts of features such as ‘ShoutOut’ and ‘Open House’ to enhance the overall user experience.

Operating on a hybrid model — a do-it-yourself (DIY) platform and fully-fledged agency services — the company aims to tackle traditional property pain points that are rampant in the Philippines real estate industry such as the lack of transparency, unreliable agents, slow feedback, and fragmented property services.

The burgeoning property market in the Philippines holds great potential. As per a recent report, Manila is the world’s top housing market for price appreciation at 22 per cent annually.

In Manila alone, the condominium saw a 11.9 per cent increase in annual average prices in the last three years alone. Metro saw a record 54,000 condominium units sold with steady year on year growth.

“We believe that the Philippines property market will remain resilient as there is a huge unmet demand for housing and investors are still interested in property for long-term investments. When Community Quarantine measures are lifted in the Philippines, we expect to see a surge in property deals arising from pent-up demand from buyers,” said CEO Rhonda Wong.

Also Read: How proptech startup iMyanmarHouse remains profitable despite COVID-19

Ohmyhome launched in Malaysia in July 2019, as part of its expansion plans in the Southeast Asia region.

Since its founding, more than 5,100 homes have transacted through Ohmyhome which represents a combined value of over S$1.6 billion.

In September 2018, Ohmyhome raised US$2.9 million in Series A round of funding led by Golden Equator Capital.

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Image Credit: Ohmyhome

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SmartClean Technologies, a startup providing IoT- and AI-powered solutions for the cleaning industry, has secured SGD3.7 million (US$2.7 million) in a pre-Series A funding, co-led by SEEDS Capital (the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore) and an unnamed environmental services company in Singapore, its Founder and CEO Lav Agarwal told e27.

Other strategic investors who joined the round are Ecocare (a leading hygiene company in Indonesia) and co-CEOs of Oneberry Technologies (a security automation company in Singapore).

This round, which was closed earlier this year, brings Smartclean’s total funds raised to date to US$3.4 million, which also includes venture debt.

In addition, the venture had raised government grants in the early days of its operations.

Agarwal further added SmartClean is currently in the process of raising US$10 million in Series A from several investors, including a large VC firm with operations in India and Southeast Asia. This round is expected to close in March 2021.

The beginning

SmartClean was founded by Agarwal, Abhishek Mishra (PhD from NUS), and Stella Aw.

The idea for Smartclean occurred when Agarwal and Aw met in late 2016 to discuss the challenges faced by the cleaning company Spotless, which was co-founded by Aw in 2012.

Also Read: This on-demand cleaning startup adjusts with the needs of Singapore’s market

“We quickly realised that lack of tech adaptation is a major challenge and we sensed huge potential for a groundbreaking digital transformation in the cleaning industry,” he said.

The duo brought this idea to Agarwal’s friend Mishra and SmartClean took shape.

Launched in early 2017 at CapitaLand’s IoT accelerator programme, SmartClean is working on “reimagining the next-gen cleaning industry” and building IoT solutions which will monitor spaces, learn from the facility data and autonomously run cleaning operations of properties with a team of cleaners and robots.

“We are on a mission to fundamentally change how cleaning is done today. We equip facility management and cleaning companies with data-driven solutions to deliver the best,” Agarwal claimed.

A sidelined industry

According to Agarwal, cleaning and security form two of the biggest segments of facility management. While the security industry is tech-driven with automated surveillance and command centres, cleaning operations are still done manually, with cleaners going around and doing physical checks and cleaning on a scheduled and periodic basis.

“Cleaning is also seen as a dead-end job and hence there are very high attrition rates, thereby becoming a challenge for a cleaning operator to continuously train and deploy new cleaners,” he said. “It’s also hard to standardise cleanliness since there is no real-time visibility, and cleaners are only identifying issues during periodic checks.”

This is where SmartClean’s solutions assume significance.

“The system uses advanced data analytics, Machine Learning and predictive algorithm to compute usage and cleaning requirements, which are used to send alerts to cleaners with detailed work instructions and used by managers to plan resources in advance. This helps the industry to move from scheduled to on-demand operations, increasing productivity by over 30 per cent and improving service quality, resulting in net savings for the organisation,” he explained.

SmartClean is also rolling out a one-stop SaaS platform, called Matrix, for MSME cleaning companies to digitise their back-end operations, including workforce management, contract management, audit and payroll.

The clientele

SmartClean was commercially launched after a year-long trial in 2019 and has  expanded to both commercial and public properties, such as Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Jewel Changi Airport, State Court, NParks, Bus interchanges, and JTC Summit.

It also has ongoing projects in Singapore, India, the UAE, Indonesia and Malaysia, and is starting off in Hong Kong, Australia and Thailand.

Currently, the startup is employing 40 people and planning to grow this number to 80 by the end of this year.

The market size

The cleaning industry is a US$300-billion industry globally, of which 60 per cent is organised commercial cleaning segment. The industry employs around 50 million people and manpower drives 80 per cent of the cost.

Also Read: Singapore’s Solubots unveils self-cleansing disinfecting robots

About 1.2 million people are involved in cleaning operations in India alone, with a total market size of approximately US$10 billion.

Did COVID-19 hit your business?

“Well, cleaning is an evergreen and recession-proof business. In COVID-19 times, the need of cleaning and hygiene has only gone up. As cleanliness and hygiene gained priority, something that was good to have, became a must to have, and so did our solution,” Agarwal replied.

He also shared while SmartClean is seeing good growth, it has been facing challenges commercialising in low-labour cost markets like India, as it’s hard to justify the ROI.

“So, we have worked on market-specific pricing with sensor-as-a-service model which eases the procurement and justifies a positive ROI from almost day one,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: SmartClean

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Malaysia-based digital payments startup MyMy Holdings has raised over US$2 million from Koperasi Tentera (KT), one of the oldest co-operative banks in the country.

This takes MyMy’s total funds raised so far to US$2.9 million, valuing it at US$12 million.

The fresh capital will be used to introduce new digital financial services to its users, including dividend pay-outs, digital accounts, e-wallets and multi-currency solutions.

Also Read: Malaysia’s central bank grants approval in principle to fintech startup MoneyMatch

“With this large capital injection from KT, we will seek approval for an e-Money license from BNM to operate in the coming months. This is the first step in our journey towards securing one of Malaysia’s highly sought-after Digital Banking Licenses due to be released in 2021,” said Joe McGuire, Co-founder of MyMy.

Founded in 2018, MyMy is a digital payments startup that aims to remove traditional costs and hidden fees associated with financial services in Malaysia. It currently has 160,000 members.

Co-founder and COO Kishore Samuel positions MyMy as not simply an e-wallet but as a “financial services that combine modern technology with traditional values”. Yet is ambiguous on how exactly MyMy plans to do that.

“We aspire MyMy to be Malaysia’s first unicorn and shariah-compliant digital bank,” he told Fintech News Malaysia.

Ever since the onset of COVID-19, global fintech industry has seen an  accelerated growth. While organisations are adopting fintech to increase their efficiency, others are simply adapting to it because of the changes caused by the pandemic.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: SEA leads fintech funding in APAC in Q2; Expect more investments, jobs despite COVID-19: Singapore minister; Vertex invests in Tjetak

MyMy is not the only company benefitting from the shift in trend. Malaysia ia not new to the fintech industry as there have been many players who have come and gone in the region. Some of them include GHL, MoneyMatch, Axiata Digital and more.

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Image Credit: MyMy

 

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Listen, to be an entrepreneur, you truly have to be crazy on some level. Anything else in life that has a 95 per cent chance of failure. You probably wouldn’t do. Generally spending years of your life. And millions of dollars of someone else’s money when you fully comprehend that most startups fail? Sure, that sounds like a good idea to you.

The reason for this is that if you are truly an entrepreneur in your blood. You have no choice but to create, even if that means you will most likely fail. For example, there are some instincts you have as a person. That you are going to need to put aside if you want to succeed at the entrepreneurship game.

1. Don’t jump right in without sufficient research

The one thing most entrepreneurs have in common is passion. You have an idea; You are excited by the idea and its potential to change the world. And all you want to do is take that idea and turn it into a product.

Want to know what sounds a whole lot less appealing to you right now? Taking a deep breath, not building the product, and spending a month doing in-depth market research and competitive analysis. Guess what? If you skip this part; boring as it may be; you’ll regret it later. So then fight that instinct to run with the idea. And instead see who else had the same idea, who has tried it, who failed; who succeeded, and why.

2. Embrace competition

Once you have embraced the need for competitive analysis, now ask yourself; what is your goal here? Your instinct, as a human being, is to feel unique, to convince yourself that no one else is like you, no one has tried this, no one has already built what you have been dreaming of building.

You basically need to do the opposite of that. Build yourself a comprehensive landscape of companies in your space. Make that landscape as full as possible. Your goal here is not to convince yourself there is no competition. It is to understand that there is, which means there is a demand for your idea. If others have tried it, then you can either do it better than they, or alternatively, you can go back to the drawing board, which means you have essentially dodged a bullet by not simply building something that already exists.

Also Read: Moovaz acquires GetVan to bolster its tech-powered relocation business

3. No one likes to be wrong, but you might be

As you do your research and become more of an expert on your domain, speak to people, get feedback, look at data, and be prepared to accept that your assumptions were actually wrong. That doesn’t mean you need to call it quits, but a pivot might be in order. That’s never easy because, after all, this was your baby, but as an entrepreneur, knowing how to be wrong and move on is an absolutely mandatory skill.

4. Not everything you do has to be scale-able

Paul Graham wrote a famous essay entitled Do Things That Don’t Scale. You want to build a sustainable business, one that grows consistently, and the thought of going door to door to interview people or pick up the phone and call your customers doesn’t exactly scream scalability.

Fight that thought in the early days of your venture and do things that don’t scale, because the only way to reach millions of people is by first getting tens or hundreds of people to care.

5. Understand that you might have to close up shop

This is the toughest instinct you need to fight as an entrepreneur. You are most likely not a quitter and so reaching a conclusion that it’s time to call it a day is the last thing you are used to doing.

A good entrepreneur knows when it’s time to take an objective look at the numbers, the market, and the competition, and realize that the time has come to move on.

Also Read: NTUitive’s new programme VB18 will help Singaporeans get paid while building a business

As many have said before me, failure is that only if you don’t extract lessons from it. Looking from a failed startup can become your biggest asset in your next venture, but sometimes you just need to know how to quit.

Like I said, you have to be crazy to be an entrepreneur, but let’s not forget the famous Apple ad.

“Here’s to the crazy ones … because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do.”

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The article was first published on nfinitiv.

Image Credit: Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

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This article is published as a part of a partnership with Future Food Asia. ProAgni is one of the 11 finalists of the US$100,000 Future Food Asia (FFA) 2020 Award to be hosted from September 21-25.

While global protein demands continue to rise, the animal protein industry is often entangled with issues of sustainability, biosecurity, and ethics. As an increasing number of consumers are taking matters into their own hands by seeking safer, more sustainable, and ethical food choices, there is a clear gap that livestock producers are failing to address.

It’s no surprise that antimicrobial resistance is on the rise when taking into account the growing prevalence of antibiotic consumption in livestock farming. In regions such as Southeast Asia, for example, the lack of policy implementation and infrastructure perpetuate this issue.

Antibiotic use in farm animals has become a structural problem in the industry, as it is directly harmful to human health, and the consequent antimicrobial resistance poses a threat to the economic sustainability of the farmers.

Anti antibiotics

ProAgni, an Australian bioscience startup, is addressing this problem head-on. With a mission to eliminate the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in intensive livestock production, ProAgni has successfully developed its patented antibiotic-free nutrition range ProTect that optimises digestion.

Their feed additive technology has been developed to influence microbial fermentation and optimise animal performance, such as weight gain and health, by delivering the key types of energy that the animal can utilise. This has led to significant improvements in productivity, while maintaining animal health safety, thus providing an alternative to antibiotic use for growth promotion.

High steaks

The co-founders of ProAgni asked themselves: how do kangaroos thrive and survive on so little food and water? And produce little or no methane? What if farm animals could do the same?

They were inspired by the possibility of reducing methane emissions from ruminants whilst using less grass, water, and time and remove the use of unnecessary antibiotics to contribute to improving the economics and sustainability of farming.

Also Read: Hunger for no hunger: How Agrisea grows rice in the ocean to address food scarcity

Co-founder Fiona believes their combined efforts at ProAgni could change the status quo of the industry where there’s waste, wasted time, money, and resources. She believes that adopting their technology means more efficient meat production with fewer emissions and antibiotics and that the technology can be adapted to have applications in agriculture in Western and emerging markets.

The biggest achievement moment for ProAgni was witnessing that the product performance exceeded their initial expectations and was supported by positive feedback from producers and strong sales growth. Another milestone was proof that they could shelf-stabilise obligate anaerobic bacteria.

Fiona believes that as a finalist at Future Food Asia, ProAgni will be able to meet like-minded people who are passionate about change in the food supply, toward triple bottom line solutions.

Mooving on …

ProAgni’s ProTect product lines have been commercially available in Australia for the past two years, where the products have been scientifically and commercially validated. What keeps Fiona up at night is the fact that the industry is not adopting change rapidly enough and is doubling down on solutions that are not sustainable.

But this only fuels ProAgni’s visions as they continue to collaborate, create collective value, and accelerate the adoption of innovation for sustainable food production.

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Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) has often been regarded as one of the most lucrative industries and for good reason. In 2018, over US$60 billion was invested in CVC deals.

That number returned a 100 per cent increase from the previous year and represents 23 per cent of the total calculated capital invested in represented VC firms. It is no surprise that CVC puts up these impressive numbers: it is an easy and symbiotic way to develop business interests, expand your network, and see tangible results in a short time.

These results can be seen through new integrated solutions, foreign business opportunities, and growth in general assets.

Many CVC ventures end up largely profitable for the larger corporation as well as the smaller startup. This is because working together allows both organisations to develop themselves in a way that is positioned around each other.

As the relationship develops, this results in financial return and expanded partnerships. In some instances, the larger firm can even acquire the startup if it is well integrated into the larger business environment.

Corporate venture capital, at its core, solves a problem. The scope and intensity of the problem can vary but the bottom line is that CVCs address and mitigate some internal business challenges while finding solutions to other problems that exist through various business areas.

The why behind corporate venture capital

According to Bloomberg, it is estimated that over 70 per cent of capital invested in CVC is directed through the San Francisco Bay Area. This is because the Bay Area still holds the innovation hub of the world. However, for those outside the Bay, it can be difficult to have executive partnership conversations without a local anchor.

With venture capital being such a “people industry,” building and maintaining relationships is one of the most, if not the most important, aspect to be successful.

As a CVC, it is important to go into the venture with the mindset of building synergetic relationships. This is because CVC is always a two-way street. As a part of a larger corporation, it can be easy for the startup to be overtaken with the corporation’s larger disposable resources and facilities.

Also Read: These Kazakh startups are gearing up to dive into corporate innovation waters and beyond

However, this often causes the startup to fail. The CVC Partner needs to play umpire and protect both the needs of the startup and the company they represent.

It is important to maintain authenticity behind both companies while looking for ways to grow together. Avoiding these pitfalls allows for a symbiotic relationship between the startup and corporate partners so that those pre-established internal relationships will let you hit the ground running, and is why successful ventures within a CVC can quickly scale in market and industry respectively.

Establishing CVC governance

When starting to think about running a CVC practice, keep in mind who you will be reporting to. We at 10X Innovation Lab had the chance to interview HP Tech Ventures’ Partner Mitchell Weinstock who has a background in the hardware industry and has three successful startup exits.

Mitchell notes that where your group operates changes the behaviour of the CVC. Sometimes the CVC organisation will report directly to the CEO, CFO, or CTO, and each will have a different governance style. When bringing a startup forward, the CVC team should know the answers to questions such as:

“Who is this project benefiting? And who is providing the funding?”

At different stages and levels of CVC engagement, the people who are supporting the startup project will be different.

This will also affect the other times you will closely work with a specific part of the organisation at large and how they will respond to the CVC group. Ensuring a regular cadence of communication in your chain of command is critical. You need to constantly be aligned with the current thinking and be ready to adjust your investment thesis if the leadership team changes direction.

Part of that is deciding upfront if you are purely investing for strategic intent and financial gain takes a back seat to gain insights for the organisation, if they are equal, or you are acting more like an institutional VC and focusing on financial gain.

A governance structure is also important for a variety of financial reasons. If you are reporting to the CEO, you tend to have greater flexibility in your decision making and funding. CVC funding can be done from a variety of sources.

Depending on the size and purpose behind the venture, the funding may come directly from the company, such as when a single LP fund where the company is the sole limited partner, or it may come from an off-balance sheet account where the funding is not affecting the business units.

Before even starting a CVC practice, Mitchell recommends that you go to the people that will be overseeing the potential venture and align with the strategic visions they have for the company.

Being able to tailor CVC initiatives that revolve around these objectives will allow you to layout a road map for what kinds of potential partnerships you are looking for and create an investment thesis that both startups and other venture entities will understand.

Creating a focus

You might be wondering how to scale down your initial list of CVC opportunities. An investment thesis will keep the team aligned and focused on what is strategic to the company.

When looking at startups Mitchell recommends that you look past the product idea and look hard at the team behind the solution. He added, “The teams that most often win are not those with the best product but those with the best execution.”

Also Read: 5 things startups should know about Corporate Venture Capital

Invest in teams first. Think about the characteristics of a good business partner and know that it may take years for the product to develop and mature to the point where the company can engage in a partnership.

Many CVC opportunities for HP Tech Ventures developed over a long time. Take your time and consistently reevaluate the maturity of the product and team. Don’t give up on them because startups pivot and change over the various stages.

It helps to start with a big funnel of deal flow contacts and then narrow down your potential opportunities to match your investment thesis. Don’t eliminate opportunities just because they don’t match one of your criteria.

Take the time to thoroughly evaluate each business venture and determine whether you see a potential of collaboration in the future. Mitchell points out that some of his most successful opportunities have been from people or places that he did not initially consider as a likely source of good startups.

Landscaping CVC through COVID-19

Amidst the coronavirus, those that operate through international markets are easily able to connect with anyone around the globe. One advantage of being able to meet online is that it is easier to find a common time to sit down and chat. Another one is that those small cultural disparities, which are often overlooked, allow for smoother communication.

By creating a good network right now during COVID-19, you will set up a strong infrastructure for creating syndicates of investors who will support corporate venture capital investors in the coming years. This infrastructure will allow you to assert yourself into the venture capital world and you will be able to carry these networks into real-life collaboration.

You will need to be more creative as an investor or an entrepreneur because of the global working phenomenon caused by the pandemic. Many events where investors and investees regularly come together have been forced to be postponed or cancelled to protect people’s health and safety. Despite this, Mitchell suggests that there are still so many opportunities.

Investor conventions have moved to an online platform so now you have access to thousands of presentations and pitches that you would not normally be able to see because of time and travel restrictions. Go online and find conferences that pertain to your industry or horizontal.

Finally, as you build a pipeline of prospective startups and VCs, have regular readouts of the funnel status with your management team. They need to know when you are getting close to closing so they can prepare all the funding stakeholders for funding requests and to ensure that your internal sponsors are committed to the investment.
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Despite booming sales accelerated by COVID-19, e-commerce players have taken growth for granted at the expense of consumer experience, according to new research.

Within Singapore, over a third of consumers (39 per cent) said they are less than satisfied with their digital commerce experience, citing delivery costs, product prices, and delivery time as their top three concerns.

Titled Into the Light: Understanding What has Changed for the ASEAN Consumer During COVID-19, the study was conducted by data content and social research agency Blackbox Research and consumer intelligence platform Toluna.

Also Read: Why brands fail on e-commerce and what they can do about it

The report analysed current sentiments, expectations and behaviours of 4,780 consumers across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines.

Singaporeans using more but feeling worse

Yashan Cama, International Commercial Director of Blackbox Research, said the study confirmed a significant change in consumer behaviour in recent months driven by an increasing necessity to shop online.

The report found that Singaporean consumers reported a spike in online spending in response to COVID-19, with 63 per cent of those surveyed now spending more online, and the total online spend for the average Singaporean consumer increasing by 31 per cent.

However, the findings also suggest that that while major e-commerce brands are enjoying higher usage rates, this growth has come at the cost of greater scrutiny from consumers.

For example, while brands including Shopee (52 per cent), Qoo10 (41 per cent) and Lazada (39 per cent) are widely used by Singaporeans, consumer satisfaction with Qoo10 and Lazada falls on the lower end, while Shopee only performed average on the spectrum.

Cama said that consumer frustrations about service quality could make or break major brands.

Also Read: How shopping sites performed during COVID-19 in Singapore

“We expect some of these cornerstone brands to experience a shake-up in the coming months if these existing problems are not quickly addressed. Consumers will only become more discerning in future. With 5G technology on the verge of transforming platform capabilities, current market leaders may wake to find themselves no longer at the front of that queue if they don’t address concerns and work to deliver a more frictionless experience.”

However, Cama added that this presents Singapore with a unique opportunity to act as the innovation incubator for brands to develop best-in-class e-commerce platforms and services to address these newfound challenges.

“Singapore has always been an important market for both global and regional brands due to its strategic location, as well as its developed financial and legal system. We foresee Singapore becoming increasingly attractive as a tech and innovation hub, as trade tensions and hostility between markets like the US and China continue. Singapore has every potential to become the testbed for new e-commerce players as they look to achieve a greater understanding of consumer sentiments — within Singapore and the region,” Cama noted.

Local businesses emerge as pandemic heroes

The report also identified key trends as a result of the pandemic, notably a shift in consumer sentiment towards local brands. 78 per cent of Singaporean consumers said they were more likely to support local brands in the future, driven by a desire to strengthen their local communities and economy.

Also Read: How Shopee uses AI, data to build a marketing strategy that suits changes in user behaviour

When asked to identify brands that they are pleased or impressed with during the COVID-19 crisis, Singaporeans named homegrown players such as Sheng Siong and Fairprice as their top local brands, and overall the respondents listed at least three local businesses in their top five.

“‘International’ might be on the verge of becoming a dirty word,” said Cama. “Local brands have truly stepped up to the plate during the pandemic, as demonstrated by the key roles these two grocery heavyweights have played during key milestones such as Singapore’s circuit breaker period, and their ability to manage customers and meet their needs in the best possible way.”

“The resurgence in national pride can also be attributed to consumers looking to support their own economy. They are increasingly choosing to shop local over international. International companies will need to reassess their brand portfolios and seriously consider how they can localise their brands to reflect the values that matter most to Singaporean consumers,” he explained.

Home becomes the new headquarters

According to Cama, COVID-19 is not only changing how and where consumers are spending their money, but it is also shifting how people are going about their day-to-day lives, which will have a tangible impact on future consumer behaviour.

“Since the onset of the pandemic, homes in ASEAN have emerged as the headquarters for learning, working and socialising. An overwhelming 95 per cent of Singaporeans are happy working from home, and the majority aren’t missing going to the movies or shopping at retail outlets,” he said.

“Consumers are not rushing back to their old habits, so this new sense of life revolving around the home hub means companies need to rethink how they build this into the consumer experience in future. These changes go right to the heart of consumer behaviour and require innovative approaches across the board from property developers, landlords, employers, through to retailers,” he shared.

Also Read: How Pomelo tackles the problem of high product return with its O2O retail experience

Commenting on the significance of the findings, Cama said that the study has shown that the pandemic has unequivocally shifted how we identify as consumers. If businesses fail to adapt, the stakes are high. Any negative interaction with a brand, particularly in times of crisis, can have longstanding effects on his or her sense of trust and loyalty.

“In order to build resilience, brands need to keep a real-time pulse on customer preferences, and at the same time reimagine customer experience for a post-COVID-19 world, with care and connection at the forefront. Organisations today have an obsession with data. This is not a bad thing. But only by choosing to value customers as more than digital units or data points, will brands emerge successful,” he concluded.

Blackbox Research and Toluna carried out an online nationally representative survey of n=4,780 across six countries, aged between 18 to 60. Stratified random sampling was applied across key demographic and geographic variables to ensure representative coverage. The survey was conducted in June 2020.

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QBO Innovation Hub (QBO) has announced a partnership with the US Embassy in the Philippines to launch an initiative to support early-stage startups, amid uncertainty caused by COVID-19.

Titled INQBATION: The Take-Off, the programme will provide selected startups with financial support in the form of grants, loans and fundraising opportunities. Besides this, they will get workshops, free consultations, tax filing, marketing and access to customers.

To participate, startups will need to have a working prototype and should not have raised more than Php 5 million (~US$100,000) in external funding.

Currently, the programme is open only for Filipino startups. Last date to send the application is October 4.

“With INQBATION: The Take-Off, we want to enable early-stage startups who only need a leg up to succeed,” said ReneMeily, President of QBO.

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The partnership comes at a critical time as the pandemic has stirred up unpredictability making it difficult for many startups to directly seek investment from direct sources like VCs.

According to the Philippine Startup Survey 2020, 64 per cent of local startups will need at least Php 5 million to stabilise their operations in the next 12 months, and less than 20 per cent have enough cash and capacity to stay operational.

Also Read:  LongHash to launch incubation program targeting early stagers blockchain projects

“We are hopeful that by giving a platform to early-stage startups, they will gain knowledge and resources to develop some truly innovative ideas and solutions. We are dedicated to supporting a robust startup ecosystem, building deeper commercial ties between the US and the Philippines, and are enthusiastic about contributing to the vibrant startup scene of the Philippines,” said Matt Keener, US Embassy Cultural Attaché.

QBO is an innovation hub or a platform for the startup community to collaborate, develop talent and grow. It claims to be Philippines’s first public-private initiative for startups.

Some of its partners are IdeaSpace, JP Morgan, Department of Science and
Technology, and Department of Trade and Industry.

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The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted workforces all around the globe. Companies have had to flip to work-from-home models overnight or worse, downsize their staff. With the world’s economy in flux, only businesses that stay ahead of their competition will make it to the other side of this pandemic.

Some companies have seen the potential in investing in their employees. They are using this uncertain and ambiguous time to upskill their staff and fill any knowledge gaps.

The Singaporean government has worked closely with its job skills programme SkillsFuture for several years, but it is now offering training geared toward remote working and COVID-19 management. To deliver training to their now remote employees, many companies will have to rely on sophisticated Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Training a diverse and dispersed workforce

In 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that 14 per cent of the global workforce would need to acquire new skills or switch occupations by 2030 due to the continuing use of automation and the further development of artificial intelligence.

COVID-19 has shed a light on these skills shortages, only making them more urgent and providing an increased impetus in many sectors to implement training. Despite the previous success of government-sponsored job skill schemes, human resource leaders have identified a greater need for talent development in the context of the pandemic. Companies are developing coronavirus-specific training programmes by leveraging the potential found in e-learning platforms.

PwC’s Academy in Singapore has adapted their upskilling content for the pandemic. They’ve made their Digital Fitness for the World app free to individuals and organisations for the next year.

Talent assessment companies such as Talview have released modules and resources aimed directly at remote working and the handling of HR coronavirus procedures. Initiatives like these recognise the value of remote skills training during the pandemic.

Also Read: Why cross-cultural training programme is a must-have for the modern workplace

Moving face-to-face instruction online

A survey released by EngageRocket in May found that nine out of 10 Singaporean employees would prefer to keep working from home after the pandemic. Companies are also seeing the benefits of remote operations, and, as a result, many plan to keep a reduced in-office workforce.

By having smaller offices, firms can reduce their costs on insurance, building maintenance, utilities, and rent, which is especially beneficial during times of economic uncertainty. Businesses wishing to upskill, therefore, need to turn to distance learning platforms to carry out training.

Course content is the foundation of any training — in-person or remote. Shorter content, broken into multiple videos or sections, is better for retention, particularly when learning at a distance. To ensure the course delivers useful training content, trainers should also carry out a needs assessment before diving in, allowing them to target the requirements of the participants adequately.

Trainers who are busy supporting the organisation can find relevant content that’s ready to deliver and meets their learners’ needs while encouraging collaboration amongst staff and allowing subject matter experts within their firms to contribute to the training. A robust LMS allows training programme managers to evaluate the firm’s needs, build, deliver and monitor engagement with course content, all on the same platform.

Consistently train remote workers

Adapting to a full-time remote workforce means ensuring consistent and effective skills training long-term becomes an essential requirement. One major concern of distance working is the maintenance of high levels of productivity. By implementing a few of the following approaches to e-learning, trainers can keep staff members motivated to complete their course:

Gamification has proven to keep learners engaged as they complete an online course. Gamified courses reward learners with points or badges as they progress. Trainers should tailor rewards to their audience, making them relevant and noteworthy.

Personalisation is another way to deliver engaging educational content to employees. Meaningful feedback, accessibility across devices, and letting the participants incorporate their own video content are all ways to personalise remote instruction.

Evaluating what learners already know and designing courses to test their specific knowledge is the best way to cater content to individuals.

An LMS with a sophisticated course builder and gamification capabilities, like the Brightspace platform from global software company D2L, makes bespoke remote courses easy to deliver and more engaging for the end-users.

Also Read: Workbean: Empowering the workplace in the time of COVID-19

Holistic online solutions for remote training

Many corporations in Southeast Asia rely on learning management systems (LMS) to deliver training modules to their employees. Even before COVID-19, companies were using these platforms to train staff across the region with a wide range of customised courses.

These companies understood the need for a remote, decentralised instruction model, accessible to the entire workforce. An LMS allows clients with regional or global presence to cater their course content to the needs of each office, regardless of location or specific functions and specialties. The LMS has the potential to become a learning and resource hub for staff members, where employees can share updates and relevant information quickly and easily.

As onboarding, talent development, and education become dispersed processes, the need for remote learning grows. Transferring face-to-face training to an online model isn’t always intuitive, however. Companies need third-party learning platforms to develop courses that achieve their objectives and remove the burden of establishing an in-house structure that may lack the capabilities and resources required.

Remote working isn’t going away any time soon, and neither is the need to continue professional development, upskilling, and on the job training. As long as the workforce is remote, distance learning will also be essential. Distance learning is very much the future for the vast majority of people, and now is the optimum time to introduce it while employees are already learning to adapt to a new way of working.

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