The last three years have been turbulent for everyone, especially employees who have had to deal with constantly changing working conditions as a result of the transition from old to new technology and the rise of a flexible workforce.

As we begin to regain some sense of normalcy in our lives, the world is now dealing with an impending economic recession that will affect many companies and businesses worldwide. Companies throughout the region, and now even internationally, are being forced to restructure their operations, adapt their workforce to a more flexible working environment, and become more agile to respond to changes in market conditions and consumer demand more quickly.

As businesses in many countries had to adhere to government regulations to have their employees work from home, office space became somewhat obsolete. Because it gives employees more freedom to finish their tasks at work while taking care of their personal needs, workplace flexibility encourages employees to pursue greater independence and promotes a healthier work-life balance. Employees will feel more in control of their work as a result, which will boost their job satisfaction. 

This begs the question, is office space truly necessary?

How important is office space today?

Traditionally, real estate has been necessary to many companies because it provides them with an available resource that can serve both their employees’ and clients’ needs. According to PwC’s Pulse Survey of 2022, it is said that 22 per cent of companies are scaling back their investments in real estate, more than any other business area. This is likely a response to the increase and even the maintenance of hybrid and remote work in many companies worldwide, like Singapore and Malaysia. 

Also Read: Coworking office spaces are better investment for startups and entrepreneurs

As a result, investments in real estate have been declining more than in any other area of business. Given that we have an economic recession looming above us, it gets us thinking: Should companies look at reducing their office space to reduce their total costs and move into partial co-working? 

While office space may be necessary for businesses, it is a fact that employers and employees alike may not be able to return to their pre-COVID-19 office routines because the pandemic has changed what used to be the norm.

While business leaders must always keep costs under control and their bottom line in mind, they must also consider the health of their employees. Employee expectations have also changed, and some may no longer wish to return to their normal office routine, which might affect employee productivity.

Furthermore, with the economic recession looming overhead, along with many other factors such as the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, businesses should consider re-evaluating how they can leverage office space and incorporate remote working most effectively and efficiently into their business models.

Businesses need to consider different solutions

One way that businesses can incorporate remote working in the best way possible is by making use of a co-working space that can provide the best of both worlds for themselves and their employees. By working in a co-working space, companies enjoy all the benefits of a more productive workforce with less time, effort, and cost associated with improving and coordinating workspace facilities. 

Employees are also beginning to see the benefits of working from co-working spaces, especially with the uncertainty of the resurgence of the COVID-19 virus and the incoming economic recession. With firms seeking flexibility to protect themselves and their employees, co-working spaces have been enquired about more and are also increasing in demand.

This shows that while office space is necessary for a business, it might not be a wise investment in the long run, at least for now, and perhaps an investment in co-working spaces might do better for businesses.

Co-working spaces benefit not only employees but employers as well. Those that provide space for full-time employees are typically set up in accessible locations where employees can choose from various types of spaces, such as a separate private office, a shared space, and so on. Co-working spaces also offer companies a great way to expand their office space across different locations.

The majority of companies typically choose to lease a space for their offices. What they fail to realise is that leasing will probably cost their businesses more money and bind them to the property for at least three years without any lease flexibility.

Also Read: WORQ secures US$2.4M to grow its co-working spaces biz through partnerships, acquisitions

Additionally, companies are usually responsible for any costs related to the leased property that may need to be renovated, including design fees, agent fees, legal/landlord fees, furniture and fixture costs, and security costs, such as setting up CCTV cameras throughout the property and improving door access.

Flexibility is the future of work

The move to utilising co-working spaces is essential and optimal during this time of uncertainty with the looming recession. Co-working spaces are growing in popularity with today’s dynamic workforce, which makes the experimentation of co-working spaces for businesses worth a shot.

WORQ is also able to ease the doubts of employers by providing enterprise solutions and assisting in designing and operating a business’ space the way that they want it to be. 

There are more pros than cons to the use of co-working spaces, contrary to what employers and employees may believe, and WORQ can prove this. It is through WORQ that we may ultimately witness an improvement or a growth of businesses as we tide through the uncertainty that is the global economic recession.

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Image credit: WORQ

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Back in September, a region-wide study reported that the “glamourisation of productivity” and “rise and grind” mentality had taken its toll on employees across the region. Interestingly, while Singapore employees spend less than or as much time at work as others across Southeast Asia, they reported the lowest levels of engagement and job satisfaction.

In the communications and PR sector, we’ve become so accustomed to work and play bleeding into one that punching out your timesheet at the end of each day can feel alien. Mobile phone push notifications, LinkedIn direct mails,  “just one more thing” messages on WhatsApp – it doesn’t matter if you’re physically away from the laptop, you’re still actively engaged. But positive change is happening in the workplace.

Defining work-life harmony

Over the last few years, you may have heard various thought leaders debating work-life balance, then work-life integration, and now we’ve reached what’s termed work-life harmony.

This is most succinctly described as where work and life are no longer demarcated but become interdependent elements, where an employee can align their passions with their profession. This mindset shift feels much more attuned to the era of the great resignation and other trends showing employees are more conscious than ever of how, and crucially why they expend energy for the benefit of their employer.

For managers, the nature of work-life harmony throws up interesting challenges when leading high-performing teams, but in addition, it gives pause for thought in one’s own daily routine.

One of the many work productivity processes I’ve tried implementing is the Eisenhower Matrix. I’ve always admired the simplicity and perspective it gives when prioritising tasks through a clear lens – from the urgent and important to the not urgent and unimportant.

Having this perspective in your own daily work can have powerful personal effects, important stuff gets the attention it deserves within a manageable timeframe, and overall, you better manage your own expectations as well as those of your colleagues.

Also Read: How to make remote work more seamless and less distributed

With balance, a better sense of perspective and creating healthier boundaries as core tenets, what if managers were to consider a similar matrix when engaging their employees?

For example:

• Important/urgent – actually business critical, may require immediate overtime, be transparent with the team on the “why” and compensate and reward the effort required.
• Important/not urgent – nothing breaks if this can be left until the morning; consider when this task is communicated to the team, and if it’s late, schedule the request so it’s timed to hit inboxes in the morning.
• Not important/urgent – consider what can be outsourced or automated in advance, and if absolutely necessary for team input outside of office hours, communicate a strong rationale.
• Not important/not urgent – will the cost of burdening your team and affecting morale with such a task outweigh the time spent doing it yourself? If yes, take it on for the team.

A large part of the thinking here is about conserving your team’s energy levels, where each task can chip away at an invisible energy bar. Alongside that, there’s an overlapping bar for tolerance, where too many delegated tasks, delivered without a clear rationale, affect both energy levels and sap morale. When those drain to the bottom, team retention inevitably wanes and employees will leave your company.

Final thoughts

As we enter an uncertain next 12 months for the global economy, difficult periods are inevitable, and senior managers will need to get to know their team’s unique ways of working more than ever before. But crucially, this is not about surveilling or requiring more oversight on what each person is doing at any given time.

If the right boundaries are set and explicitly communicated, mutual respect and empathy are shown, and a very clear “why” is framed around a department’s mission and goals, managers can keep their valued employees energised and engaged.

Our ways of working have changed forever over the last two and a half years, and it’s important for each senior manager to define what work-life harmony means for their team, secure buy-in, and then go out of their way to ensure employees can actually achieve it.

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The Philippines is, in many ways, a promising market for the growth of digital banks. As of today, six digital banking licenses have been issued.

The question is, can these new players become profitable and hold their own against incumbent banks

Challenges and opportunities for digital banks

According to figures from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), over 70 per cent of the Philippines’ adult population is unbanked as of 2019, which presents a large unaddressed potential customer base. World Bank data showed that 41 per cent of Filipinos have borrowed from family and friends, showing a high demand for credit and a lending gap that digital banks can help plug.

Many traditional bank accounts have costs or minimum balance requirements that many people cannot afford. Documentation, or lack of it, is also a common issue, as millions of Filipinos do not have any formal identification.

Millions of people in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7000 islands, also live in remote areas with no access to a branch and, therefore, no way to open a traditional account, presenting a huge pool of untapped opportunities for digital banks to expand into.

Today, fintech solutions used by digital-only challenger banks have made it possible and cost-effective for banks to provide digital bank accounts for people who cannot get to a branch; non-bank fintech has made digital payments increasingly widespread, and alternative lenders can now use a range of methods to assess creditworthiness and grant SMEs access to vital finance.

Indeed, a study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) found that digital financial solutions can address around 40 per cent of the unmet demand for payment services and about 20 per cent of the credit requirements of poor households and small businesses in Asia.

A key challenge for digital banks is differentiation because they are targeting the same customer base, offering similar products and services and trying to build a similar elevated digital experience. It will be hard for consumers to find significant differentiating factors between them, so they will be drawn in by two main factors, rates and trust.

Whilst the digital-only banks, with their lower startup and operational costs, will look to attract customers with loss-leading rates, they will not be able to compete with the trust and brand recognition enjoyed by digital spin-offs from existing banks.

State of play in the Philippines

With the Philippines’ final digital bank license issued in September last year, it was notable that the BSP decided to cap the number of licenses at six instead of the original seven, as well as imposing a three-year moratorium on digital banks.

Also Read: Looking to expand your business? Head down to the Philippines!

This development is significant for both incumbent banks and traditional banks. For traditional banks, this can mean more time to adjust and adapt to the emergence of challenger banks. The additional time window to implement upgrades and revamp their digital offerings would no doubt be welcomed.

If traditional banks can evolve successfully to meet the customer’s needs, they can leverage their relatively larger customer bases, well-established infrastructure and offerings, combined with strategic investments into digitalisation, to gain an advantage.

However, digital banks also stand to benefit from the BSP’s decision. Under the BSP’s digital banking framework, scalability has been identified as a key criterion for a license, and the three-year moratorium can help new licensees secure first-mover status in the industry to attract a critical mass of customers.

Additionally, a cap on the number of digital bank licenses, along with the three-year moratorium, instils certainty on the level of competition, meaning the licensed digital banks can focus on developing innovative financial products that best serve the needs of Filipinos in a sustainable and scalable manner.

Need of digital banks to do to succeed in a competitive environment

In the Philippines, there are several technologies and infrastructure drivers that will play in favour of virtual banks over the coming years. These include the rapidly rising adoption of mobile and e-payments, expansion of the country’s credit data infrastructure and increasingly open access to relevant digital information via APIs.

Digital banks will also likely benefit from lower technology costs by being built on cloud infrastructure. Instead of investing in their own expensive hardware, digital banks can dedicate more of their funding and revenue to attracting new customers and eroding incumbents’ market share by focusing on customer experience, something the established banks have traditionally not done well.

Also Read: How digital banking is driving financial inclusion in SEA

Just as incorporating cloud capabilities can help reduce hardware costs, neobanks can also harness the potential of Open Banking and leverage the expertise of fintech instead of spending much-needed resources to develop solutions themselves.

A ‘plug and play’ Open Banking model will enable them to build a technology stack tailored to suit their specific needs and objectives, with proven fintech solutions that are cutting edge, substantially reducing the time to market.

Banking as a Service (BaaS) also offers opportunities for digital banks. BaaS is the provision of retail or wholesale banking products and services, in context, as a service using an existing licensed institution’s secure, regulated infrastructure with modern API-driven platforms.

BaaS simultaneously creates the opportunity to reach more customers whilst lowering the acquisition cost per customer significantly. In short, BaaS makes it simple, fast and cost-effective to integrate regulated products into the customer journey.

Another opportunity for digital banks is the rise of cashless services like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL). The adoption of such services has been accelerated by COVID, and BNPL is now the fastest-growing in the Philippines.

To take advantage of this additional revenue channel, digital banks collaborate with e-commerce players to embed banking products, such as unsecured loans, in merchants’ point-of-sale processes.

BNPL options often do not require an interest payment or minimum monthly payment, which can make it more attractive to customers than borrowing on a credit card whilst also exposing banks to a new segment of consumers who don’t have access to credit cards.

Final thoughts

The Philippines is on the cusp of a digital banking revolution. While concerns about the viability of digital banks are certainly not unfounded, the technology is now turning the Philippines unbanked and underbanked populations into a viable demographic with enormous potential for financial institutions.

By choosing the right technology and the right strategies, digital banks can be profitable and make a significant contribution to solving financial inclusion in the country.

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NirogStreet, an Ayurveda tech startup based in Delhi, India, has received US$12 million in a Series B round of funding led by Jungle Ventures.

Existing investors Spiral Ventures, ICMG Co-Creation Fund (managed by ICMG Partners), DoorDash’s Gokul Rajaram, SMBC APAC co-head Rajeev Kannan also participated. Besides, the family office of Anthony Weldon also co-invested.

“This new fundraise will help us strengthen our supply chain, service offerings and tech that will help us realise the vision we are working to achieve,” Ram N Kumar, Founder and CEO of NirogStreet, said.

With technology-based interventions, NirogStreet enables doctors by giving technology to run their clinic, access to quality medicines inventory in real-time, and avenues to learn and earn while also closely working with the government, regulators, and research organisations.

Also Read: How these five startups are changing the game in health and well-being

It has over 50,000 Ayurvedic doctors in the community and encourages them to create and publish case studies and research reports to bring evidence-based treatment similar to modern medicine.

In addition, NirogStreet has built an end-to-end supply chain infrastructure for Ayurvedic medicines. The company has created a verified marketplace of Ayurvedic medicines from which doctors can directly order and fill prescriptions while staying on the platform. NirogStreet manages the fulfilment direct to the customer door.

In December last year, NirogStreet secured US$4 million in funding led by CE-Ventures.

As per government estimates, there are over one million AYUSH doctors in India, of which the majority are Ayurveda practitioners. Over 600 AYUSH medical colleges introduce over 30000 new medical graduates every year. The industry has grown significantly over the years, and as per government of India releases, it is a massive 18 billion category, primarily led by practising and prescribing doctors. The recent pandemic has also increased the awareness of preventive healthcare, and there is an evident underlying shift in consumers’ attitudes toward Ayurveda and natural healing.

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Kristal.AI, a private wealth management platform, has secured over US$10 million in its pre-series B round of investment.

The investors participating in the round are Chiratae Ventures, the Sanadhya family, Desai Family Office, Stride Ventures and unnamed high net-worth individuals (HNWIs), besides Kristal.AI founders.

This brings the startup’s total funding to more than US$27 million. This round is incremental to its US$6.3 million funding raised in March 2021.

Also Read: Kristal.AI expands to ESOP liquidity offerings

Kristal.AI will use the new capital for expansion into new markets and driving product and platform innovation.

Asheesh Chanda, Founder and CEO of Kristal.AI, said. “The mass affluent and emerging high-net-worth individual (HNWI) investor class in Asia continues to grow exponentially, with total financial assets in the continent set to hit US$68 trillion by 20251. This funding round will be crucial in helping us continue to innovate, digitalise, and tailor our solutions for current and prospective clients.”

Established in 2016, Kristal is a digital-first private wealth advisory and fund management group serving mass-affluent clients globally. It specialises in advising clients on highly personalised investment portfolios. It has investment product suites comprising over 200 premium funds, such as private equity/venture capital funds and structured notes.

The difficult-to-access products, such as pre-IPO deals, are also available.

Other offerings by the group include a discretionary mandate, a digital family office, a variable capital company, and robo-advisor portfolios.

Kristal.AI has over 180 employees across Singapore, Hong Kong, India and the UAE.

It operates in Singapore under a Capital Markets Services license regulated by the MAS. It is also licensed and operational in Hong Kong and India.

The firm claims it tripled its assets under management (AUM) to cross the US$1 billion mark in August 2022 and grew its user base year-on-year by over 50 per cent.

Also Read: Wealthech startup Kristal AI looks to democratise private banking

Alongside this funding announcement, Kristal.AI also announced its application for an ADGM license for expansion into the UAE. The license is subject to approval by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA).

Gaurav Rustagi, Chief Growth Officer at Kristal.AI, commented. “The Middle East region has at least US$35 billion AUM and is home to a large population of mass affluent and HNWIs. Over the years, the UAE has steadily built its reputation as a wealth management hub bolstered by factors like an open economy, strict compliance and governance, progressive regulatory environment, a welcoming environment for businesses and an abundance of talent.”

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