2020 proved to be a year of learning for all of us. We witnessed businesses and consumers move away from their comfort zones in order to adapt and manoeuvre around the challenges that emerged during these unprecedented times.

The retail industry is affected the most by the effects of the pandemic. Businesses that have identified key industry and economic trends early benefited greatly, enabling them to adapt their services and operations to meet the changing demands.

There will be opportunities for growth in 2021 as we learn to adjust to the post-COVID-19 world and form business decisions around the new trends and parameters.

New trends have emerged at the back of these customer behaviour shifts and it is vital for SMEs to be on a constant lookout to capture opportunities as they weather the COVID-19 crisis. For starters, here are some that we’ve identified across the retail and logistics industries and expect to continue as the economy recovers.

Transforming business through delivery

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and shown both established and new retailers that e-commerce is a necessity. Speed of delivery is the secret for winning in the battle of online commerce, from adjusting the strategy to delivering the products and services efficiently.

Take Singapore’s estate group buys, for example. As consumers continue to work from home in Phase 3, many are opting to shop and dine from the comforts of their home. This change in behaviour has accelerated the growth of estate and community group buys during the pandemic as citizens look for ways to minimise the delivery costs for their purchases. Group buy orders can range from food, fresh groceries, to even electronics and apparel.

Also Read: Ex-Nordic Eye chairman’s new Singapore-based fund to back tech startups solving logistics challenges

Along with social initiatives to support local brands, these trends result in a growing interest in hyperlocal e-commerce and deliveries, where customers seek to receive their orders at their convenience within a short time span from when the purchases were first made. It emphasises the need for retail SMEs to adjust their logistics strategy to provide prompt and reliable delivery services.

As customers ourselves, we know that prolonged and delayed delivery can be a painful experience. With the increasing demand for speed and efficiency, retail SMEs can enlist aid from logistics experts to capture new opportunities and scale their businesses.

Successful enterprises have enlisted help from logistics partners to enhance the efficiency, reliability, affordability, and flexibility of their delivery services, ultimately improving their overall capability to deliver customer satisfaction. Furthermore, working with the right delivery partner who is truly dedicated will enable you to focus on business growth instead of responding to poor delivery experience complaints.

Rise of hybrid events

The year 2020 was not easy in the events landscape. Businesses will risk missing hundreds of millions in revenue if they fail to respond to the default demand of providing a seamless shopping experience across online and offline platforms. As a result of challenges in holding physical events, organisers quickly pivoted towards virtual alternatives for conferences, concerts, marathons, and even food festivals.

For example, the annual Singapore Shilin Night Market has been a popular physical event that draws large crowds with various limited-edition Taiwanese food and product offerings. Due to the pandemic and safety regulations, the organisers had opted to launch it as the largest virtual event last year.

Pickupp had helped support the digital version of the food festival by hosting it on our web portal and mobile app. A category called “Digital Shilin 2020” was curated specially for the event, which included close to 100 unique F&B vendors. At two weekends, thousands of orders were received and fulfilled by us.

Also Read: Asia’s logistics industry must be ready for blockchain, and here’s why

The virtual Singapore Shilin Night Market is a great example of how businesses can flourish by adjusting to the changing conditions and leveraging logistics solutions to meet new customer demands.

As physical events are gradually being introduced under stringent circumstances, we anticipate hybrid events to surface where online and offline options will be made available, making delivery an essential part of the overall experience.

Evolution of logistics models and services

Over 39 per cent of consumers in ASEAN expressed their dissatisfaction with their e-commerce experience last year, indicating delivery costs and services as main issues. Consumer frustrations can result in severe consequences if left unaddressed– making or breaking the trust in the brand. To stand out from the crowd, retail SMEs must improve their logistics processes and services, ensuring flexible options are available and that orders are fulfilled efficiently.

Most enterprises are using a fixed fleet model today, where supply cannot adapt to the volatility in delivery orders. In contrast, Pickupp uses a hybrid of freelancers and an in-house delivery fleet, allowing enterprises to cater to fluctuating levels of demand, and allowing merchants to fulfill orders of up to five-folds, especially during festive periods.

Those who also leverage technology and implement strategies to facilitate transparency and flexibility will enhance the quality of their online-to-offline customer experience, thus, improving customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Apart from offering same day, next day, and one to three day deliveries, we have recently launched our express two-hour delivery services in Singapore to provide more flexibility for merchants to better meet their customer demands.

Sustainability has also risen in importance in the past year – with Singapore recently announcing its erstwhile efforts to transition into a car-lite society. On this account, we expect walkers (agents who deliver goods on foot) and bikers to grow in popularity, given their proven efficiency and smooth delivery in crowded and dense geographical areas.

In Singapore, almost 50 per cent of our active delivery agent pool consists of walkers or bikers. We expect these numbers to grow with the expansion of Singapore’s cycling network and the public transport infrastructure.

Also Read: iStore iSend raises US$5.5M to grow its logistics and supply chain biz beyond Malaysia

The scaling of orders will drive hyperlocal deliveries, where merchants can rely on walkers and bikers to fulfill deliveries within their district, leveraging their mobility and flexibility as they are not affected by traffic conditions and the lack of parking spaces during peak hours. This results in an increased efficiency and costs saved on gas or parking.

With enterprises facing steep competition due to the e-commerce boom, delivery, which plays a major role in the overall customer experience, can influence purchase behaviour and brand loyalty.

To capture the new breed of customers, retail SMEs must re-evaluate their current logistics strategies and be open to adopting new approaches to meet the increasing fluctuations in demand. Partnering with established logistics companies is a great way for retail SMEs to start.

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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 and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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Corporate innovation, for many of us, is like a long-time acquaintance whose complete persona remains unknown. Personally, I only see bits and pieces of it, having worked on a handful of these programmes such as the recent twinning ICMG-led, e27-backed initiatives: the Aichi Smart Sustainable City Co-Creation Challenge and the Aichi Startup Festival 2021 with e27.

Usually, we only know of the hustle that happens on the e27 side of the programme. Tweaking and finalising of problem statements. Organising rounds of intensive calls for application to our pool of relevant tech startups. Responding to enquiries on solution relevance, timeline, requirements, and what have you.

Once the startups have submitted their applications, after the organisers have addressed frequently asked questions, and as soon as the partner corporates kick off their course of selection, the space on this side of the world grows quiet again.

That is why we are so thrilled to sit down with Cherry Murillon of Philippine-based CAWIL.AI, one of the startup finalists of the first Aichi co-creation challenge. This open innovation programme gathered several global participants, over 40 of which came from the diverse pool of startups within the e27 community.

Murrillon, the passionate Co-Founder behind CAWIL.AI, gave us a glimpse of what happens beyond the application process as she narrated their team’s corporate innovation journey, motivations, challenges, and key learnings.

The case for international open innovation challenges

CAWIL.AI is an industry-agnostic AI solution with customised tooling that focuses on computer vision (providing accurate datasets for machine learning models).

Murillon recounts that when e27 invited them to join the co-creation challenge, their team has already built the core development of AI in several of their products and that their team is very agile in the implementation of AI especially in computer vision. All they needed to have is data to train the AI tool.

However, she mentions that being a deep tech AI company in the Philippines can be challenging, what with an environment where most solutions are consumer-driven.

Hence, Murillon admits, “my experience in joining international open innovation challenges has fueled the desire to present and showcase our capabilities and services especially in the Japanese market.”

Statistically speaking, the majority of corporates see less than 25% of their initial pilots with startups scale into solutions that can be taken to the market. However, this does not diminish the appeal and necessity of corporate innovation for both startups and corporates. For the latter, enabling innovation is key to survival and growth in an ever-changing business environment.

Startups benefit from the process, too. According to Murillon, the idea of joining the open innovation challenge has given them much-needed exposure to technology users and adapters.

“This is in addition to the possible funding that the partner corporate may provide if our solutions get chosen,” she adds.

Also Read: The corporate-startup tango and why it continues to be relevant

Pushing through despite the big unknown

When asked why CAWIL.AI pushed through with their application considering the limited amount of resources coupled with the heavy time investment of joining a competition without the guarantee of successful commercial engagement, Murillon has this to say:

“For me as a tech founder, the exposure and marketing outcomes of the challenge have added value in pursuing it. We don’t get international exposure like this every day, especially with Japanese corporates.”

Truer words have never been spoken. Indeed, corporate innovation programmes:

• Create a startup-friendly environment for corporates to share their different problem statements,
• Generate opportunities for startups to scale and grow their business, and
• Facilitate manageable and transparent expectations for both sides.

It also helps that corporates tap strong ecosystem partners such as e27 to leverage their wide network of various startups across the region.

Programme walk-through

The pandemic-induced physical restrictions brought about a unique set of opportunities in the realm of corporate innovation. For one, qualified startup participants have a higher chance of pursuing the programme as they are not bound by the obligation to travel and be physically present on-site.

In turn, this gives the partner corporates a bigger pool of potential startup collaborators to tap from all over the region.

“We meet every two weeks on Wednesdays for updates, although we send slide updates in advance,” Murillon recounts her open innovation experience.

For the challenge, CAWIL.AI presented a mobile application-based AI that will detect the fault in bead weld default for manufacturing.

On her experience in co-working with the Japanese corporates, Murillon notes that they “are very straightforward and supportive. They presented us with the requirements that we need to fulfil.”

Challenges and key learnings

Virtual collaborations are not without challenges. For one, the language barrier can restrict progress. To this end, Murillon shared how they rose above this hurdle: “I commend my lead engineer who can understand the Japanese language. She was the key to letting us know what our co-creator has in mind. Also, the company president can speak English and helped in translating some of the ideas they wanted to implement.”

The tight timeline also posed a challenge for Murillon’s team. “The three-month co-creation and development of MVP was a bit fast given we got very little data from them. We have seen the constraint and the difficulties of the partner corporate in conducting the inspection.”

Additionally, the team has also had to deal with last-minute changes and updates with their algorithm because of the manner in which to integrate it into the system.

“Overall, however,” Murillon contends with fondness, “it was both an interesting and a learning experience for us.”

As for key learnings, Murillon shares about exciting opportunities for startups because “the Japanese government and corporates have been propelling the society toward Industrial Revolution 5.0 through their various corporate innovation programmes.”

“They are working to convert most of their operations into digital AI-driven processes, which have opened new possibilities for tech providers like us.”

With regard to which aspect of the process she enjoyed the most, Murillon recalls the fun side of exchanging ideas with their Japanese counterparts.

Also Read: Messaging tips for startups: a primer on improving one’s customer service

What lies ahead

“We have achieved our goal in terms of coming up with the solution within a set period of time,” Murillon narrates. “We don’t know the final outcome of the challenge yet, but we are very much positive that our partners will give us the support needed for the final development.”

Additionally, according to Murillon, joining the competition has allowed CAWIL.AI to “take advantage of the challenge so we can showcase our capabilities in AI to targeted audiences.”

When asked to give her advice to startups in the context of joining innovation challenges, Murillon has this to say:

“I challenge you to get out of your comfort zone. Explore other markets and don’t rely on purely investor opportunities. At the end of the day, your value is on the user, not just on the fancy tagline.”

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e27 continues to believe in the robust opportunities brought about by corporate innovation. Whether it’s end-to-end execution or amplification of your call for open innovation applications, let us know how we can help you. If you are a corporate or entity looking to organise an open innovation challenge, talk to us today!

The post How leveraging a corporate innovation challenge helped CAWIL.AI fuel its growth appeared first on e27.

Qoala, an Indonesia-based insurtech startup, has announced the strategic acquisition of Thai insurtech platform FairDee.

According to Qoala, this move marks its expansion into the Thailand market as part of larger regional expansion plans.

Besides providing access to the Thai insurance market –which Qoala claims is the largest consumer insurance market in Southeast Asia — the acquisition also serves to “speed up technology scalability and innovation” across Qoala’s businesses.

As per a press note, the entire FairDee team will join Qoala to continue the latter’s growth in Thailand.

Launched in 2018 by Harshet Lunani and Tommy Martin, Qoala claims it processes over two million policies per month, serving industries including automobiles, health, life, travel, fintech, consumables, logistics and employee benefits.

Established in 2019, FairDee’s platform helps independent brokers digitise their offerings, enabling them to increase their productivity and access more insurance products to better cater to the needs of their customers. The Thai firm claims its annual Gross Written Premium has grown by seven times despite headwinds brought about by the pandemic.

Also Read: Why Asia’s insurance industry is poised for collaborative disruption

“FairDee and Qoala share the same vision in how insurance can be reimagined. Hence, we are doubling down on developing technology to deliver an excellent insurance experience to the community digitally in Thailand on the back of our strong SEA presence,” said CEO Lunani.

“With this acquisition, we are taking a big leap in the group’s regional ambition to be the number one insurtech in Southeast Asia. Given the shared vision and expertise that FairDee’s team has been able to cultivate since its inception, we are confident to continue to serve millions of underinsured in the region,” he added.

“We started FairDee to bring the best insurance experience to customers across the region. Being part of Qoala will greatly accelerate that vision, and together, we are more than excited to deliver further innovation in Thailand and beyond,” commented Yujun Chean, co-founder and CEO of FairDee.

In April 2020, Qoala announced its US$13.5 million Series A fundraise led by a joint venture between funds from South Korea’s Kookmin Bank and Telkom Indonesia, Centauri Fund.

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Image Credit: Qoala

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As a matter of fact, many established startups including unicorns would have gone through an incubation/acceleration programme at some stage of their journey.

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For example, Airbnb, which joined Y-Combinator back in 2008 when the co-founders realised they were running out of money; Twilio, a billion-dollar company which was accelerated by 500 Startups; and Khatabook, a 3-year-old Indian startup currently valued at US$300 million, which was part of Sequoia Capital’s Surge.

The role of an accelerator is to help startups become fully operational and sustainable. It doesn’t however mean these companies are not capable of running their business without any external help.

Having said that, being a part of an accelerator certainly offers many benefits to startups.

The idea of an accelerator is to provide founders with all the necessary resources that could polish them, so they don’t make avoidable mistakes. Some accelerators help startups by providing direct or indirect financial support while others offer a combination of non-financial and financial support.

But what goes into running a truly successful accelerator programme?

To answer this, e27 decided to interview Jonas Thürig, Head of F10 Singapore, a fintech-focused accelerator and incubator.

Launched in 2015 with the help of Swiss and Spanish stock exchanges, F10 has today expanded its programmes globally to Zurich, Singapore, Madrid and Barcelona.

What makes the organisation stand out is its strong network of influential banks, consultancies, insurers and tech firms. Consequently, all of its mentors hail from some of the largest corporates in the world, including Accenture, DBS, Deloitte, HSBC, NETS, Oracle, Standard Chartered and UBS.

Also Read: Meet the 6 fintech startups graduating from F10s inaugural accelerator programme

With a strong footing in finance, F10 ultimately wants to help founders contribute towards the innovation of the fintech industry.

Here, Thürig discusses how F10’s programme is designed to help cultivate the fintech innovators of tomorrow.

Part 1: The selection

A multi-phased process

Before we actually start scouting for startups, we identify challenges and problem statements from our corporate partners. With this information, we then go out and discover startups.

We receive about 300 applications per batch. The F10 team then pre-selects the top 50 startups. We then invite them for a 30-minute pitching session before we share their details with our corporate partners.

From there, we select the top 25 companies and invite them for a 1-day speed dating event with corporates, after which we select the top 10 finalists that make it into the programme.

Screening criterion

When we screen the startups and interview them, we look at various aspects: team composition and experience, the problem they are trying to solve, how big is the opportunity they are trying to address, technology, etc.

Our programme prefers a combination of two co-founders (rather than solo founders) with one being technically focused and the other business-focused, as this structure has proven to be more resilient.

Here are also some other qualities that the accelerator looks for in founders:

1. Coachability of the founders: Are they open to feedback and able to act on and apply inputs from experts? Do they listen and understand their clients’ needs?

2. Professional and educational experience of the founders: This is less about their working experience with big brands but more about understanding the industry relevance and skill sets they bring to the table.

3. Past successes and failures as founders: For instance, if they have previously worked in/built a startup, which is useful to understand how they tackled hurdles and triumphs.

4. Immediate network: The blunt reality of being an entrepreneur is that it is a life choice with an impact on an individual’s family and friends as well. Having a strong circle of support is essential to ensure they can manage the journey as a marathon, not as a sprint.

5. Startup solution: Once this is established we can see how that can be developed for commercialisation.

Examples:

1. There is one Verticys (supply chain finance) in the current cohort, whose co-founder Volkmar Ahrens has two decades of experience in the supply chain industry.

He understands the pain points of the SMEs and their financing well. He also knows where the data sits within the MNCs and how this data can be utilised to develop its supply chain financing solution.

Also Read:  6 notable accelerators and incubators in Southeast Asia for startups of all sizes

2. Another example is Data Lagoon. Its team members have a very strong track record of working with Israel’s airforce and an investment firm (as data analysts).

The solution Data Lagoon is building comes from their previous experiences and is now applied in the areas of family offices and smaller asset managers — who require alternative data for their investment decisions but are not able to afford to have a huge team of data scientists.

Part 2: Entering the programme

The first day

It’s in a way like your first day at school. The first day with F10 is very much about setting the scene and getting to know each other.

We start with an outlook on the overall programme. This is like a briefing session that includes a masterclass, a gist of the expected outputs from teams, ice breakers and speed dating elements to get everyone familiar with each other.

We then introduce teams to the corporate partners, as well as the mentor network to whom they present and tell them what they are looking for.

Requirements for successful graduation

In order to make sure the teams are ready for long-term partnerships and growth, we expect them to fulfil several criteria by the end of the programme:

1. Teams have developed an MVP

2. Teams have acquired a first client (minimum letter of intent)

3. Finances are stable to conduct PoC (proof of concept)

4. Teams are incorporated and have investor deck ready to be shared with investors

How F10 supports the startups

1.  Ensuring readiness: We ensure that the teams have their prototypes tested and adjusted and are ready for launching the MVP.

2. For acquiring their first client: We host multiple networking events with industry experts and run workshops for improving the teams’ business development skills.

3. For a sufficient cash flow to stay afloat during PoCs and pilots: We get them to create a risk mitigation plan and get them ready to fundraise according to their timeline.

Also Read:  Swiss fintech incubator F10 enters Singapore, soon to kick off accelerator programme

4. To execute projects with (potential) clients: We ensure the team has sufficient resources to set them up for the best opportunities to succeed.

5. To coach: During the programme, we cover common topics each startup founder and team needs to be aware of — from design thinking to interviewing, refining value proposition, prototyping, go-to-market strategy all the way to getting investor-ready and pitching their business idea to various stakeholders.

6. To accommodate individual needs and questions: We work with the startups as coaches and address their specific needs in our weekly coaching sessions. We also assign 1-on-1 mentors that are working with the founders on more specific topics, which can range from marketing and communication via product development to value proposition adjustment.

Examples: 

1. APIAX, a graduate of our Zurich programme, later joined our Singapore programme. We supported its APAC manager in launching its business in the city-state. By connecting them to our local corporate partners, the Singapore-based team was able to take the startup’s success to Asia.

2. From our second Zurich batch, the three co-founders of Vestr had left their full-time jobs to start the company. They were frustrated with the manual process of managing a specific structured product in the capital market and decided to build a more efficient web-based solution.

They demonstrated that their industry and educational background helped them get kickstarted. Today, their 30-member team gets together on a regular basis to get all their employees across the globe (offices in Switzerland, Germany, Ukraine, and Singapore) up to date about its product and client progress.

Part 3: Graduation

Added support

After the startups graduate from the 6-month-long programme, F10 additionally provides its batch of companies with the following support:

1. Continued promotion and introduction to existing and new corporate partners

Also Read:  Meet the 6 fintech startups graduating from F10’s inaugural accelerator programme

2. Community sessions and expert sessions with mentors

3. Extended coaching on an ad-hoc basis

4. Cross-promotion of startup updates via F10’s channels and network

5. Opportunities for co-speaking and exhibitions with F10 at conferences

6. Speaker opportunities at alumni events

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Image Credit: F10

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“When you’re in a startup, the first ten people will determine whether the company succeeds or not.” – Steve Jobs

Love him or hate him, I think Steve Jobs hits the nail on the head with this statement. We all recognise the fact that people on the team can make or break a startup.

The search for great talent is even more challenging for deep tech startups, competing with the tech giants of the world to fill highly sought-after technical roles such as robotics engineers, data scientists, and quantum researchers.

Yet deep tech startups still enjoy a certain draw, especially amongst Millennials and Gen Zs. A dipstick survey we conducted recently found that they enjoy contributing to a good cause, having more autonomy and flexibility built within the job, and being part of a team with strong potential growth.

The next generation of talent has also shared their aspirations to be part of a collective where they can make a difference and create a real-world impact on issues they care about. This is where deep tech startups, with their promise of developing solutions that address pressing global problems, are well-positioned to appeal to this purpose-driven generation and compete to attract the ‘cream of the crop’.

So how can early stage deep tech startups better their chances at attracting the right talent?  It’s not exactly rocket science, but here are four things to note before going on the talent hunt:

Benchmark remunerations with industry standards

While early stage startups may not have the luxury of offering huge salaries, it is still important to ensure adequate and fair compensation aligned with industry standards. Founders can offer equity plans –an approach we see more widely adopted in mature startup hubs such as Silicon Valley– to help cushion the cash flow.

But how much should be given and to whom? Frankly, there’s no straightforward answer, although the general sentiment is about 0.5 – 5 per cent in equity options, depending on seniority and timing of hire. While there are reports on equity or remuneration in other parts of the world, this data is not readily available in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region.

Recognising this gap, SGInnovate is working with AON to survey startups in the region to gain a better understanding of salary benchmarks and the results will be out in the first half of 2021.

Also Read: Uncovering the rise and challenges faced by deep tech startups in Singapore

Effectively communicate the company’s vision, achievements and plans

Beyond financial considerations, deep tech founders should clearly articulate a vision that resonates with the people they are trying to attract and appeal to their interests. It is important to be able to stoke the passion of potential hires and make a strong case for them to join the company.

Potential hires are assessing the company, as much as interviewers are assessing their ability to contribute to the team. Consider sharing the support that the company has received from investors, and how far the tech or innovation developed has come.

Laying out the company’s business and commercialisation roadmap will further imbue confidence in the talent that the company is forward-thinking, and that the business can remain competitive.

Having the right backdrop is also key to winning that talent over, so be it a formal interview, business lunch or casual coffee, take the time to let these potential talent get to know the team and the company better. It will make all the difference.

Offer enrichment and upskilling programmes

As startups generally play on their agility and small team strength, it is equally important to provide opportunities for upskilling and expansion of job roles and responsibilities. Provide on-the-job learning, internal training and mentoring/coaching with an experienced member of the team to build a good people-centric reputation for the company.

Additionally, there are deep tech workshops available to build talent capabilities, including SGInnovate’s Deep Learning Developer Series for AI and the Cybersecurity Professional Series funded under CITREP+, and many other government-funded schemes such as SkillsFuture that subsidise the costs for talent to pick up new skills through workshops and courses.

Also Read: NextBillion.ai crowned as champion of the SLINGSHOT 2020 deep tech startup competition

To grow, develop, and strengthen resources, tap on these schemes and external learning opportunities to plan a learning path together as a company.

Utilise talent programmes and marketplaces to identify high-potential candidates

Last but not least, start early in the game and think ahead about the types of talent that will be needed in growing a deep tech startup. Actively engage people with a view in assessing if they could be the talent required when the company reaches different stages. At every opportunity, market in the best possible light so that potential hires would be familiar with the company.

Take advantage of talent programmes such as SGInnovate’s Summation and PowerX which are geared towards encouraging fresh graduates/undergraduates and mid-career switchers respectively, gain real-world skills in the Deep Tech space. Community events and talent marketplaces are also effective networking opportunities where potential hires and Deep Tech startups can connect.

The  upcoming New Frontier 2021 on April 10 is one such event that startup founders should keep a look out for to engage with fellow industry leaders and meet potential talent.

Building a deep tech team together

Through my interactions with many leaders, I’ve come to realise that the ones who build the strongest teams often possess one key trait: a strong sense of awareness – both of themselves and also their teammates. They understand the strengths of the team, gaps to fill, team dynamics and are open to bringing in the right people to complement them.

Most times, the right people come from different backgrounds, experiences and academic prowess. So don’t let biases and discriminations be the hurdle to hiring the right people. If anything, COVID-19 has shown that when push comes to shove, talent can be found working from anywhere, anytime.

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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 and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit: Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

The post How early-stage deep-tech startups can attract and retain the right talent appeared first on e27.

As we head into the new year and a volatile business environment, businesses continue to face the challenges of a largely remote workforce, evolving digital business requirements and elevated customer expectations.

Entrepreneurs and business leaders need to be quick to join the dots, make new connections and find innovative solutions to problems. Opportunities abound for those who are ready to embrace a creativity-led leadership to steer their teams through these uncertain times.

To challenge the status quo and inspire your team, here are some insights and practical tips.

Culture influences creativity

Organisational culture is crucial to an innovative company, yet it can often seem like an elusive and intangible concept. Based on the results of the Adobe Creativity Quotient (CQ), only 29 per cent of APAC leaders have succeeded in creating a culture that embraces creativity.

Those who don’t are missing out on the opportunity to create value for their business and nurture employees to do their best work.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses that had embraced change and had the agility to launch new business models were better able to thrive in the new operating environment.

Those were the businesses whose leaders were competent in change management and were able to effectively guide their teams through a period of intense transformation.

As businesses increasingly embrace hybrid work environments, they need to find new ways to support a culture that develops employee creativity. Aim to recreate or simulate the aspects of the company culture that require in-person engagement, such as water cooler conversations and informal spaces for bonding, as these are familiar environments for collaboration that spark creativity.

Also Read: How to use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to drive resilient leadership in 2021

Data centricity only matters if you have the right data

Successful entrepreneurs and business leaders understand that customer centricity hinges on data. However, only 36 per cent of leaders effectively use data at the start of every creative process and one in five use data retrospectively, to post-rationalise creative approaches.

One of Adobe’s customers in India, Tata CLiQ, brought up the ‘problem of plenty’ that organisations face when it comes to data.

Because businesses are collecting so much data from all their customer touchpoints and interactions, they are often overwhelmed by the amount of information available and hindered from making important decisions fast.

With the wealth of tools available to capture granular data, the priority must now shift to collecting and dissecting the right data. The use of data needs to be strategic, meaningful, and structured, right from the start.

It is also worth marking data collected ‘before’ and ‘after’ COVID-19, with insights drawn from it contextualised by how the pandemic has changed customer behaviour.

Blurring the lines between roles

The pandemic has changed what constitutes good customer experience (CX), and expectations will only continue on an upward trajectory.

As organisations move towards more agile customer experience management (CXM), different roles and teams within the organisation – including marketing, technology, and customer service– need to integrate for deeper collaboration.

Convenience is the main tent pole of CX today, and the delivery of that requires the collective intelligence within an organisation to understand the human experience as well as the emotional aspect throughout the customer journey. It is also what sets one startup apart from another in a crowded marketplace.

Empathy fuels creativity

According to Adobe CQ, only 25 per cent of APAC business leaders were driving the skills needed to navigate transformation and change. While technology can augment and enhance this, it cannot replace creativity and uniquely human abilities, such as empathy.

Empathy is increasingly vital in everything a business does – from understanding buying journeys to managing internal team processes, to analysing data insights. Data combined with empathy and creativity, equip a brand to deliver exceptional CX.

To innovate and drive business transformation in 2021, lean into fostering entrepreneurial skills that can be applied across business functions and roles. Technological skills, while important, will become less mission-critical as empathy, critical thinking, and the ability to problem-solve creatively, take precedence in the post-COVID-19 environment.

Also Read: 7 things to consider when distributing leadership roles among founders

Understand how technology augments human skills

While 2020 brought about a massive digital shift, offline channels remain an important platform to connect more intimately with customers. Companies that are able to understand the power of integrated CXM and apply that throughout the entire customer journey, will stand out.

Technology will continue to advance, enabling businesses to reimagine their operations. However, people also need the right skills to understand how to get the most out of that technology.

Leaders need to think not just about how to teach people technology skills, but also how to provide adequate time and resources to help employees apply that technology meaningfully and creatively across the business.

We’ve emerged from a year unlike any other and the year ahead remains uncertain. Those who lead with creativity will be well placed to thrive in the new normal.

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Finance teams in ride-hailing, logistics and food delivery companies can all testify to a common headache — consolidating data.

Due to the nature of their operations, these platform businesses deal with a high velocity and volume of financial data that makes monitoring and tracking it a stressful experience.

Despite the important role finance plays in both operations and growth of a company, it remains one of the few aspects that has not been digitalised. Financial data is still collated on age-old excel spreadsheets. While this would suffice for small businesses, it is not sustainable for high-growth businesses.

Saurya Prakash Sinha shares similar sentiments. At his former employers PhonePe (mobile payments) and Flipkart (e-commerce), Saurya noticed they were struggling to manage their financial data.

“The existing financial tools were crumbling with the growth in transaction volume, omnichannel commerce and numerous payment instruments. We realised the financial demands of businesses were rising and new financial infrastructure would be required on top of which the new commerce and fintech companies would be built,” he shares with e27.

Having discovered financial processes such as reconciliations (an accounting process that checks two sets of records to ensure the figures are in agreement), calculation of commissions and accounts reporting were not catered for in the existing technological stack, he partnered with Prashant Borde to build Recko.

The Bangalore-based startup seeks to solve this problem by providing a centralised platform for businesses to manage their financial data. It achieves this by collecting data from a wide range of sources, including mobile payment platforms and banks, before consolidating and displaying it on an easy-to-read dashboard for finance teams.

How it works

Diving into the specifics of how the platform operates, Saurya shares individual financial “events” are created in real time for purposes, ranging from order approval to successful transactions.

According to him, this enables companies to monitor their financial operations at a more granular level and the real-time nature of it enables teams to identify gaps and plug them, instead of waiting for months.

Also Read: ‘gojek taught me the importance of making data-driven decisions’: outgoing CTO Ajey Gore

Once these events are created, they are organised into immutable and auditable ledgers that are ready for auditing or diligence checks — putting an end to the stressful experiences of finance teams when such tasks are due.

Recko’s platform serves a variety of purposes for businesses. In the case of calculating commissions, Saurya shares Recko stores commercial terms and payment cycles within its system. By eliminating human errors and guesswork, he says the company has enabled clients to recover incorrectly charged commissions from their business partners.

To support the reconciliation practice widely adopted by accountants, bank accounts can also be integrated onto Recko’s platform to enable companies to cross-check their transaction figures with their actual cash flow.

Protecting data

With over US$9 billion worth of transactions reconciled on Recko’s platform, we quizzed Saurya on how the company protects the financial data passing through its infrastructure.

“We follow a stringent set of security practices to safeguard data in transmission as well at rest. The infrastructure is regularly penetration-tested for any loopholes or gaps, both internally and our security partners,” he replies.

Also Read: Fall in line: What is the role of a Data Protection Officer at a startup?

He also claims Recko is ISO 27001-certified (the international standard for information security) and compliant with PCI DSS (the information security standard for organisations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes).

With new regulations governing data protection are likely to emerge amid the increased scrutiny on cybersecurity, Saurya maintains Recko’s infrastructure is designed to be flexible enough to accommodate them.

Growth

Adopting a usage-based revenue model similar to SaaS companies, including AWS, the flexible nature of the solution enables companies to scale their operations in tandem with Recko’s offerings, enabling it to cater to a range of organisations ranging from early-stage startups to large enterprises.

With Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures leading Recko’s US$6 million Series A funding last year, the company is set on expanding its operations to a global level.

“We quadrupled our customer base and onboarded customers in Southeast Asia and Europe. There is a large pipeline of customers from multiple regions. We are also having our initial pilots in the US and would be opening up the geography very soon,” Saurya discloses.

With Recko solving an age-old problem for finance teams, it certainly has the potential to change how companies manage their financial data. As they have discovered, when one solves a real need, the sky’s the limit.

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Image Credit: Recko

The post One-stop platform to track financial data: How Recko makes financial operations a breeze for businesses appeared first on e27.

There’s no denying that 2020 disrupted business norms. Driven by the pandemic, organisations were faced with the need to accelerate change in the way they do business and engage with employees and customers. As organisations, we grappled with how to reach our communities – wherever they may be – in a seamless way.

As one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools, INSEAD strives to deliver exemplary experiences for its students, staff and faculty alike. In the face of the pandemic, which closed off most of our global campuses like Singapore, we faced a new challenge: a seamless transition to digital learning experiences. 

What’s more, the pandemic motivated many to future-proof their skills and secure their position amidst a period of uncertainty.  Interest in MBAs grew significantly at the peak of the pandemic, INSEAD saw applications for its MBA programme increase by 58 per cent compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. 

In the face of this new challenge we found an opportunity to continue delivering the standard of experience our students and staff expect, underpinned by strategic digitalisation initiatives we’ve implemented to modernise our systems around student scheduling and enrolments.  

Overcoming our integration roadblocks

Unlocking and connecting data across applications and systems is one of the biggest challenge organisations face today. In a learning environment, a disconnect in the ability to bring student information together with legacy IT inhibits our ability to power undisrupted, digital learning experiences.

Our technology ecosystem was composed of more than 100 disparate and siloed applications, which made it difficult to keep up with evolving student and faculty expectations.

During high-traffic periods, such as enrolments and scheduling, this created a frustrating experience for students while overwhelming staff with manual work and driving up IT costs for operations and maintenance. 

We needed to modernise our legacy systems, unlock important data–wherever it was and promote connectivity and reusability across our technology systems. An integration approach was critical in bridging our data divides and overcoming silos across our applications and systems.

Put simply, we needed to modernise how we operated on the backend to meet the expectations of our students and faculty.

In an increasingly crowded market, where people have the choice between several business schools and programmes, digitisation and integration were no longer ‘nice-to-haves’ but ‘must-haves’. 

Streamlining scheduling and enrolments through automation

Scheduling and managing course enrolments are tedious, time-consuming tasks for students and staff alike. By far one of the biggest challenges faced was not having a universal system to navigate scheduling, which led to weeks’ worth of additional manual work on the part of staff and often led to technical issues scheduling classes on the part of students. 

We needed a more efficient system, one that freed our staff from having to manually book thousands of courses when the system failed to do so. We also needed to provide a universal scheduling view for staff across various departments which had become accustomed to using their preferred specialised scheduling tools.

Also Read: For the digital economy, traditional education needs an update

By building 36 APIs, supported by platforms such as MuleSoft, we’ve been able to reduce manual work across the organisation by 60 per cent and increase developer speed by 44 per cent. This has also allowed us to automate the enrolment process, further liberating staff from extra work.

Less time spent on cumbersome processes such as scheduling and course bookings means we can focus on boosting our digital learning experience through new services. 

Furthermore, we’ve also been able to integrate our student information system with other systems to give all staff access to a universal and holistic view of scheduling while using their preferred tools. 

Building the classrooms of tomorrow

Organisations today need to take a holistic approach to understand their core audiences and the education sector is no exception. 

Empowered by MuleSoft and a focus on reusable assets, we’ve boosted productivity across the institution, cutting around two weeks of manual work and development every semester to enrol and deliver student life capability. 

We plan to continue innovation in the future, such as relaunching our Alumni Portal so past students can reap the benefits of a connected experience too. The way we work and live is constantly changing – the way we learn must also be reimagined to meet students’ needs and build the digital classrooms of tomorrow. 

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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 and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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Yoan Kamalski, the co-founder of co-living startup Hmlet, has stepped as the CEO of the Singaporean firm, Business Times has reported.

Peter Kennedy, senior advisor at Burda Principal Investments, an investor in Hmlet, is serving as its interim CEO starting this month.

As per this report, Kamalski’s stepping down is the latest in a series of departures by the top management. Hmlet CTO Pramodh Rai is set to leave in June.

Hmlet, hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, had cut its workforce in December last year after it struggled with sales and change in customer habits.

The post Yoan Kamalski steps down as CEO of Hmlet: Report appeared first on e27.

Meet Jenny Gustafson, who uses psychology to cultivate better relationships with her team and clients.

Today, she helps you understand WHY psychology is so powerful.

We discuss:
– How has knowledge of psychology helped us in life
– Why is psychology important for all founders to know
– How psychology can help you better understand your team members
– Why you MUST learn empathy NOW
– How psychology can help your team members better understand each other
– What it’s like to be a working mom
– And more!

If you don’t see the player above, click on the link below to listen directly!

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This article was first published on We Live To Build.

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