Happy New Year! Did you have a good break, yeah? Mine was pretty good and long but by the end of it I could not wait to come back to my desk and all the action.
Thanks to gojek, getting back work was far more exciting than I imagined. While we cannot think beyond the impending Gojek-Tokopedia merger (after the long ordeal of possible Gojek-Grab merger), the last week of 2020 and the first week of 2021 was actually very productive for the e27 Contributor Community.
From fintech predictions to productivity to customer engagement, our contributors flooded us with what to expect in 2021. Catch up on the missed action, including tips from COO of Zendesk and more.
2021: Predicting another bumper (un)predictable year for payments by Tristan Chiappini, VP, APAC at PPRO
“The year 2020 has been a year of momentous change for the payments industry not just in APAC but also across the world.
Trends that were identified this time last year as emerging have been hugely accelerated as a result of the pandemic. Rapid growth was predicted, but it was unpredictable on the scale that has happened.”
Top 5 fintech predictions that will take over the world in 2021 by Victor Fredung CEO at Shufti Pro
“The majority of the businesses faced a downfall when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Only a few of them were smart enough that somehow successfully showed an upward trend and out of them, one was the fintech industry.
Both businesses and customers start utilising contactless payment methods to avoid physical contact with each other. According to a study, there was 72 per cent of evident usage of fintech apps in Europe, especially since the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following are the top 5 predictions that will take over the world especially in 2021 and later upcoming years.”
Keeping customers happy
What customers really want from brands and businesses in the post-pandemic world by Wendy Johnstone is the Chief Operating Officer for Zendesk APAC
“In this ‘new normal’ we keep talking about, digital strategies and data capabilities drive the customer experience. Increasingly, customers expect quick, simple and accessible support that can instantly provide the answers they need.
Whether this comes in the form of a self-help knowledge base, a reliable AI chatbot, or a quick message to a support agent, the key is being wherever your customers are, whenever they start asking a question.”
How startups can improve customer engagement and grow LTV ratio by journalist Luke Fitzpatrick
“Customer engagement is an essential part of any successful business’ growth formula.
An engaged customer buys from you, recommends you to their friends, and has a higher average order value. There are tons of benefits but how do you create an active and engaged customer base?
That’s a good question. There are many strategies but the linchpin is a deep understanding of who your customers are and what problem they come to have solved. Here are some proven tactics to increase customer engagement and, by extension, customer lifetime value.”
From the founder’s mouth
Lessons from experience: Scaling your startup with a remote team by cofounder at SOTA Partners, Neal Taparia
“As Bob Dylan once sang: ‘The Times They Are A Changin’.’
When you are running a startup, you no longer need all your team members in one place. You can have them scattered across the globe and still manage to scale your operations. Thanks to countless communication and collaboration software, managing a remote team is a cake walk for startup founders.
You can have a developer from Japan, a UX designer from Ukraine, a QA tester from India, and a project manager from the US.
However, there is a catch. Managing a remote team is not the same as managing an in-house team. You need to approach remote team management from a different angle to keep teams motivated, productive, and also to scale your startup.”
Lockdown learnings: How I became a half-decent product manager in 2020 by Gijs Verheijke, founder and CEO of Ox Street
“When Ox Street started, I had a co-founder for about a month — a talented and experienced product manager, who was going to take care of the tech side of things.
Unfortunately, he got an ‘offer he couldn’t refuse’ from his employer and didn’t follow through. That left me as the sole founder, in charge of finding engineers and leading the development of our product.
No problem! I thought my experience with project management and team management in general, as well as my obsession with structure and clear communication, left me well prepared. I was squarely at the peak of ‘Mt. Stupid’.”
e27 2020 Year in Review: A transformative year with lots of reflection, change and appreciation by Mohan Belani, CEO at e27 and Head of Product
“What a year this has been. 2020 forced us to think differently and allowed us to experiment with a lot of the ideas that have been on the back burner. It forced us to rethink our role in the regional tech ecosystem, and here are some of the details to how we changed how we worked during 2020.”
Working with governments
What the Tech.Pass scheme means for startups and the rise of Singapore as a thriving centre of innovation by Charles H. Ferguson, General Manager, Asia Pacific
“It is no secret that Singapore has been vying to become Asia’s tech capital for years. With the mounting US-China trade rivalry and the shifting global technology chain, Singapore has become a rather ideal, neutral choice as a launchpad for any company that wants to seize opportunities in Southeast Asia.
Tech.Pass supports Singapore’s positioning as a regional tech hub. With the scheme, Singapore aims to develop top-notch talent that ensures Singapore stays ahead of the game in today’s fiercely competitive digital world while contributing to the growth of the regional start-up ecosystem.”
Data will help public-private partnerships build future resilience in SEA. Here’s how by Gautam Kotwal, Chief Data Officer, Gojek
“Across the globe, the monitoring and analysing of big data for actionable insights is being put to use, giving rise to initiatives such as contact tracing, movement control in highly-affected areas, or the distribution of financial aid to people in need. But state-sanctioned measures or corporate-led campaigns can only go so far. To make a real impact, the public and private sectors must work together, sharing information and combining resources.
In Southeast Asia, with infrastructure development and public funding so varied between nations, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are even more vital to ensure timely and beneficial solutions to socio-economic challenges.”
A wave of change: What sets impact investing apart from traditional investing by Bowen Khong, Impact Investing Advocate
“Governments, businesses, and most important of all, billions of people around the world realise the need for a change in the status quo. And millennials and the younger generations, whose future is at stake, are starting to demand more action.
This change in attitude is also reflected in the realm of investing – there are many “buzzwords” in the mainstream media to reflect this zeitgeist of ‘do good’ investing. They include terms such as impact investing, ESG investing, and SRI/ethical investing.”
Staying productive
SMEs, here’s how you can do more with less by Joey Lim, Vice President of Commercial – Asia, Lark
“Having lived through the biggest remote working experiment in history, many companies are now well-equipped to accommodate telecommuting arrangements.
However, as the number of COVID-19 community cases continues to remain at zero in Singapore, we see safety measures being relaxed and more people allowed back into the office. This poses yet another challenge for companies as they now need to adapt to a hybrid workforce, where only half of employees are working in the office, while the other half work from home.
For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), these frequent changes can dampen their productivity and efficiency. Compared to their larger multinational counterparts, SMEs have fewer resources, and oftentimes, employees need to wear multiple hats.”
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