As hackers become bold and technology advances, the Southeast Asia business community will need to ramp up their cyber defences or face severe consequences. This means moving cyber expertise from the IT back office to the top floor.

Southeast Asia businesses are on a cyber knife edge. For the last few years, a well-trained cyber army has mounted a torrent of attacks causing unsurpassable devastation to businesses’ operations – and their bottom lines. Given the unstoppable rate of cyber breaches and attacks, the only solution is for business leaders to take decisive action, implementing stringent cyber measures from the boardroom to the warehouse.

This fact illustrates the need for decisive leadership: despite Southeast Asia’s apparent cyber vulnerability, the wider Asia Pacific market is expected to witness the highest growth of cyber security expenditure between 2022 and 2031. It is clearly more than just a technology problem.

An elevated risk

The first step in improving Southeast Asia’s security position is understanding what constitutes an appealing target. Historically, cyber security was simply a case of protecting networks and devices from malicious codes and viruses created by a handful of amateur hackers.

Also Read: Indonesia’s antivirus reliance: A cybersecurity blindspot

However, today, attack technology is far more advanced, and the attackers may be anything from organised criminal gangs to state-sponsored threat actors. Moreover, Southeast Asia’s chief information security officers (CISOs) and IT managers are dealing with multiple attack surfaces, spanning mobility, the internet of things (IoT), software-as-a-service and the cloud, and a host of threats ranging from low-level phishing to full-scale ransomware attacks.

Thanks to the emergence of crypto-currencies, cybercriminals are finding it easier to carry out large-scale attacks such as ransomware, in which attackers use malware to hold an organisation’s data in exchange for a ransom.

According to a recent study, 67 per cent of companies in Southeast Asia reported they were victims of ransomware attacks. Operational technology (OT) has also become increasingly threatened. An emerging cyber threat weaponises programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to infiltrate OT and enterprise networks.

And finally, social media platforms have become an elevated risk as bots, spam accounts, and phishing scammers look to exploit human and business vulnerabilities.

The prevalence of bots is concerning due to their ability to sow discord and build mistrust amongst organisational stakeholders. They also pose a gateway to financial scams and can lead to employees compromising important information.

Across the world, bots and spam accounts account for 77 per cent of online security and fraud incidents. Bots’ capabilities are significantly greater than humans’ due to their automation and the absence of human error.

All of these issues can be attributed to several factors: ageing infrastructure, poorly-designed architectures, application vulnerabilities and physical device infiltration. However, human error is the primary cause of most data breaches and cyber-attacks.

According to an IBM report, 95 per cent of cyber security breaches are primarily caused by human mistakes, costing US$3.3 billion. A single, reckless human error can effectively undo investment in an extensive stack of sophisticated cybersecurity technology.

These incidents often stem from a lack of cyber training and poor awareness of the various attack methods. In addition, the post-COVID-19 shift to remote and hybrid working has made monitoring employees and their use of company technology more challenging.

Also Read: Safeguarding digital assets through cybersecurity innovations

The most critical factor is a business culture built on cyber complacency. If senior executives ignore or dismiss the cyber threat, then there is no impetus for employees to care.

Review your resiliency

Naturally, given the potential repercussions of human error, any organisation’s first line of defence is boosting staff awareness of cyber threats. The Singapore Police Force’s (SPF) recent guidelines on types of crimes and online harm are a good place to start.

CISOs and IT managers often then follow this up with regular communication on circulating phishing scams and technological trends.

Consistent education for employees is key to building resilience. Employees who are well-versed in their company’s IT stack are less likely to be exploited by cyber threat actors.

Crucially, organisations should ensure they have robust cyber security policies in place that are driven from the top down. Business leaders and boards that communicate regularly with CISOs and IT chiefs are more likely to be well-defended against current cyber attacks.

Business leaders may need to review their internal systems and policies to achieve this resiliency. They may be required to upgrade legacy technology stacks, implement privileged access management (PAM) and Zero-Trust procedures and consider investing in a 24/7 security operations centre, either through their cyber security vendor or a managed security services provider (MSSP).

Whatever the roadmap, a business’ leadership should be at the forefront, thereby ensuring a healthy cyber culture across the entire organisation.

Of course, adopting this culture is easier said than done and necessitates both time and investment. For small-to-medium businesses, both costs and resources remain a constant pressure. Meanwhile, multiple silos and overlaying IT stacks at the enterprise level can complicate the issue.

Nevertheless, business leaders willing to listen to and work with cybersecurity experts will find it easier to align their security measures with their business strategies. Together, they can formulate financial plans incorporating cyber security costs while still achieving their KPIs and objectives.

Once the Southeast Asian business community better understands cyber security’s benefits on long-term business health, investment in this area will no longer be regarded as a cost but a necessity. The tools are already there: leaders and security experts need to bring them together.

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As the world enters the digital economy powered by Industry 4.0, digital transformation has reshaped the business landscape, increasing the degree of competition and leaving businesses which fail to embrace digital technologies at a huge disadvantage.

At the core of the digital transformation process is data management, the process of collecting, storing, and extracting valuable insights from the vast amount of data. To be specific, big data analysis can help businesses make strategic and data-driven decisions, enhance customer relationship management by uncovering consumer behavioural patterns and preferences, and eventually boost business performance and profitability.

In addition, big data also helps create new products and services by studying gaps in the market and understanding what consumers want, enabling businesses to tap into uncharted waters and identify business opportunities that were once deemed impossible. But big data analysis alone is not enough. In order to harness the full potential of data, we must ensure that insight and action from such information are rendered as swiftly as possible so that it can be used when it is at its most valuable: right now.

The limitations of traditional batch data processing systems

With an enormous amount of data generated within the digitally connected world, it is critical to process data in a timely manner to ensure effective decisions.

Traditionally, data is handled in a step-by-step workflow with raw data being collected, classified, usually stored in some database or storage system and then transformed, and analysed in iteration, before being presented in a manner for easy interpretation. On one hand, the traditional batch processing approach can facilitate periodic data transformation, logically extract valuable insights from the data, and inspire additional interactive data exploration to optimise the analytical process. On the other hand, one fundamental disadvantage of batch processing is the delay between data collection and data analysis, making insights generated from the data less relevant as time goes on.

Also read: Grooming local fintech talent at Airwallex

Despite the best efforts to minimise the waiting duration for batch processing, systems relying on this kind of data analytic process still suffer from inconsistencies and they might miss the golden opportunities for action that are presented by analysing data in real-time. Moreover, in many cases, users require such real-time processing capabilities to make decisions and respond to critical issues in a matter of seconds or even milliseconds such as detecting patterns, addressing inconsistencies or preventing financial fraud, and so on.

In these situations, processing data in real-time (otherwise referred to as ‘stream processing’) proves to be more beneficial since it allows data to be processed, transformed and analysed immediately upon arrival, creating real-time insights and solutions to challenges and setbacks at the time of event occurrence. 

How Aiven’s Apache Kafka and its open-source streaming ecosystem enable businesses to connect and optimise their streaming data

Serving the mission of facilitating the experience for developers and perceiving the increasing need for real-time or event-driven applications (applications powered by the processing of events in real-time), Aiven, the open-source cloud data platform, launched the first and fully open-source event streaming ecosystem for Apache Kafka to help companies optimise their data streaming in near real-time.

As a data hub and event streaming platform, Apache Kafka delivers answers right at the moment when the question arises, moving companies from waiting to acting. This is becoming increasingly important in today’s digital world, where more and more companies are employing microservice architectures. In this aspect, Apache Kafka can simplify communication between services in the organisation, publishing their events as they happen, and making them available to any (or all) microservices that are dependent on them. 

Also read: How should you engage customers in a rapidly changing market?

Adopting Aiven’s Apache Kafka and its open-source streaming ecosystem can offer businesses several advantages. In the first place, using Apache Kafka as-a-service, businesses can easily set up clusters, deploy data streaming services, migrate their data between cloud regions for better data resiliency, and bring products and services to market faster, without worrying about managing the underlying data infrastructure.

One of the unique features of Aiven’s Apache Kafka is its ability to flexibly increase or decrease the computing power and storage of users as they scale up or scale down their operations. Additionally, with the use of a fully-managed service like Aiven’s Kafka, you benefit from Aiven’s enterprise uptime and SLA of 99.99% which ensures continuous operation of the customers’ activities. More importantly, by subscribing to Aiven’s Apache Kafka, businesses can also gain access to its comprehensive ecosystem and supporting services such as Aiven for Apache KafkaConnectⓇ, Aiven for Apache Kafka MirrorMarker2Ⓡ, and more supporting tools and services.

Aiven’s Apache Kafka customers’ success stories

Aiven for Apache Kafka is suitable for businesses of all shapes and sizes, ranging from startups to established enterprises that have a need for an integrated, open source-based data streaming environment that can easily scale and handle real-time data feeds. The product can be set up easily, connecting to the client’s tech stack via over 30 connectors and integrating to end users’ preferred tooling via APIs, the CLI client, and Terraform provider, among others. As such, the product is currently being enjoyed by a slew of high-profile companies.

Wolt, a Helsinki-based commerce company, has decided to build its real-time data infrastructure based on Aiven for Apache Kafka as the core technology to build its digital solutions, achieving significant savings which were then used towards improving its own products and services. Particularly, for Wolt, Aiven’s Kafka acts as a message bus to communicate between services and ingest data from different databases. Wolt complimented Aiven for Apache Kafka on its ease of use, scalability, and its superior tooling support and interoperability.

Also read: Building resilience through the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards

Another long-term customer of the Apache Kafka service provided by Aiven is logistics business, Swift Solutions, which offers delivery and order fulfilment services in Indonesia. Swift Solutions has applied multiple services from Aiven’s product portfolio including its Apache Kafka service along with Aiven for MySQL and Aiven for RedisⓇ. The company has also adopted the Aiven Kubernetes Operator since its early development stage.

Moreover, GoTo Financial, a service within the tech giant Gojek, also noted the benefits of partnering with Aiven, particularly how the platform provided support for GoTo Financial in both its early attempts to separate Kafka instances for each product and function and its subsequent efforts to integrate every service into one single consolidated system with almost zero risk.

These are only some of the notable examples of businesses ranging from e-commerce, retail, to logistics, to fintech — all made better with the help of Aiven.

Interested in finding out more about how the different tools and technologies of Aiven’s ecosystem for Apache Kafka can help address your business challenges? Here’s a list of resources to get you started: 

• An introduction to Apache Kafka
• Aiven for Event Streaming
• Managed Apache Kafka by Aiven

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Aiven

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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Mapping technology has become an integral part of various products and services, proving its usefulness in both web-based and mobile applications. For example, ride-hailing services such as Uber, Grab, or e-commerce applications such as Shopee, among others, rely heavily on mapping technology to provide on-demand services, calculating accurate times of arrival, optimising transportation routes, and ensuring accurate traffic information for references.

Nevertheless, the current mapping and addressing solutions lack accuracy, context, and in many regions, content. In fact, 95% of drivers have reported problems with inaccurate mapping, and around 71% of drivers had to spend an average 4-11 minutes to locate the right drop-off location. Consequently, it was estimated that around $2.5 billion could have been saved annually if it weren’t for wrong mapping information.

Additionally, within our increasingly interconnected world especially in terms of integrated supply chain and logistics, one wrong address can lead to delay and disruption at multiple touchpoints, increasing costs of transportation and loss. 

The growing trend toward hyperlocal delivery and associated services

The trend towards hyperlocal delivery has been in the making for the past few years, reshaping delivery and logistics services.

The availability of location-based search enables customers to look for products and services from nearby providers, reducing time and cost of transportation, and allowing them to enjoy fresh local produce. Moreover, retailers can also benefit from minimising delivery efforts, and tailoring their services better to serve customers’ specific demands and preferences with location-based insights.

Also read: Data streaming in real-time made possible with Aiven’s Apache KafkaⓇ

Additionally, following the sudden emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have also become increasingly attuned to online shopping as a means of adapting to the new normal of travel restrictions. All of these things are happening alongside the fast development of digital infrastructure, disruptive technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the high rate of adoption of mobile devices, especially smartphones. All of these things have come together to make hyperlocal delivery a reality.

As such, the global hyperlocal service market is predicted to post a strong compound annual growth rate of 12.5% over the period of 2022 – 2028 to reach an estimated value of $3730 billion.  

Limitations of existing mapping technology

Looking into the future of mapping technology and considering the robust growth in the demand for hyperlocal delivery, one-map-fits-all solutions no longer work in today’s digital economy. Instead, maps of tomorrow have to be hyperlocal and contextual, providing dynamic content and more precise and detailed information regarding each location.

Moreover, current mapping and addressing have been primarily concentrated on urban areas, and there is still a huge lack of mapping data when it comes to rural areas, venues, and indoor spaces. In addition, another weakness of current mapping technologies is that location data and changes are not updated in real-time. This presents a huge disadvantage for delivery services, especially for places in emerging and fast-developing economies like Southeast Asia where location data is dynamic — changing every day, every hour, and sometimes every minute. Hence, companies currently have to deal with data that does not reflect real-world context, or worse, that displays a distorted picture of reality.

Also read: Grooming local fintech talent at Airwallex

Companies do not own their location data. The location data that companies generate are added to the mapping provider’s database, making it difficult for companies to access these data at a later time. Logistics companies also do not have control and autonomy over additional location-data knowledge and insights gathered by their fleet workers that could add a competitive edge. This is a problem many businesses face today.

How UNL redefines the future of next-generation hyperlocal mapping technology

Recognising the gap in the market, UNL introduces Virtual Private Maps (VPMs) that enabled businesses to create their own private maps with just one click and organise location data and services. Following a modular, data-agnostic design, VPMs can connect multiple data sources, allowing businesses to benefit from a map that is truly contextual to their business case. 

“When it comes to infrastructure, addressing systems and local standards, each market comes with its unique challenges. Achieving a hyperlocal level of accuracy and relevance of maps and location data can be too resource, asset, tech and labour heavy for a single mapping provider to guarantee. The only way to do that is to make maps distributed, decentralised and hyperlocal. Establishing collaboration of all local stakeholders to contribute to the quality and relevance of these maps,” explained Xander van der Heijden, Founder and CEO of UNL.

What makes VPMs a powerful tool for businesses is the combination of data ownership and the ability to publish location and point-of-interest data updates in real-time. With VPMs, businesses can securely bring their own data and keep ownership and control within their organisation. Additionally, by connecting 3rd party data sources at various geographical levels and setting up continuous feedback loops, companies are able to maintain a single source of truth that represents the real world.

Also read: How should you engage customers in a rapidly changing market?

“Data autonomy and ownership have been core to UNL’s philosophy and values since day-1. Any data our clients bring remains under their control and ownership, and they can manage data access rights,” shared Xander van der Heijden.

UNL VPM data can be seamlessly integrated with all UNL location APIs, SDKs and connected applications, available via UNL’s do-it-yourself Micro-location Platform. UNL provides a suite of powerful location services, including plug-and-play mapping, geocoding, search, routing and data management APIs, SDKs and plug-ins.  

By creating their own Virtual Private Maps, businesses around the world can power their location-based services and applications such as e-commerce, delivery, smart city, and other autonomous solutions.

UNL Virtual Private Maps also come with a particularly resourceful tool: the UNL Studio. With an interactive visual design interface for users to visualise, manage, and update maps and location data, UNL Studio enables users to seamlessly interact with various location intelligence tools and data sources, edit map style, and visualise custom/business data — with no coding required.

In the near future, companies are also able to either keep their data private or they also have the option to open up their data and integrated applications to the marketplace and tap into opportunities to monetise their data.

In sum, thanks to UNL’s Virtual Private Maps, businesses no longer have to contend with the limitations of one-map-fits-all solutions. UNL’s VPM enables users to create private maps that scale alongside their business, control location data quality and ownership, and maintain the relevance of their private maps for reliable usage and monetisation.

For more information, visit https://unl.global.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by UNL

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

The post UNL: Driving business success with new-generation micro-location mapping appeared first on e27.

2023 will be a year of fresh restarts and opportunities amid uncertainties. With a myriad of expected changes and global trickle effects coming our way during this economic cycle, this year will see the need for an even more nimble business strategy.

With that comes the greater calling for a complementary communications approach. Compared to Multinational Corporations (MNCs), which are generally already well-versed in communications due to their industry experience and resource, identifying a strong communications approach this year will be key for start-ups and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

According to EY’s latest CEO Outlook Survey, half of Asia-Pacific businesses (surveyed companies’ annual global revenues ranged from around US$500 million to more than US$5 billion) across key sectors like manufacturing, finance, health sciences and technology are planning to pursue an acquisition this year.

Also Read: Is the metaverse the future of social media?

With these businesses’ scale, they are aware that now is the opportune moment to best capture market share and even edge out SMEs or early-stage companies.

SMEs: Small in scale, big in influence

However, scale is not everything, especially for industry innovators, regardless of their stage of business, which can effectively tap into strategic communications for PR. Yet, in today’s communications context, it is no longer the case of ‘any PR is good PR’ – and SMEs need to go beyond that to achieve business success.

But what does it mean to have a strategic communications approach? Essentially, this means that SMEs take a proactive stance instead of simply reacting to events or issues by implementing a well-planned approach to communicate through various platforms. In doing so, they can close the gap with larger competitors. Usually the go-to for industry thought leadership.

Proactively looking to share valuable insights and expertise with its audience provides valuable content. It demonstrates expertise for SMEs to establish themselves as leaders in their field and influence industry narratives while growing brand awareness and attracting new customers.

Planning your next steps

As the saying goes, ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail’. To kickstart a strategic communications plan, there are a few key steps:

• Define your objectives: What do you want to achieve with your communication efforts? Objectives can include increasing brand awareness, driving sales, improving customer satisfaction, raising funds, attracting investment interest and more. It is important to lay out these objectives specifically as they will impact the subsequent considerations.
• Identify your target audience: Who are you trying to reach through your communications? Understanding your audience will help you determine the most effective channels and tactics.
• Determine your key messages: What do you want your audience to know, feel, or do as a result of your PR efforts? Clearly defining your key messages will help ensure that your communications are consistent and on-brand.
• Using the right platforms: Which platforms will most effectively reach and engage your target audience to deliver your key messages? This could include traditional media outlets, social media, and speaking at events.

Also Read: How myFirst aims to provide a safer social media experience for children

• Identifying the right content: One way to ensure businesses stay relevant and engage their audience is by creating interesting and relevant content. This can include blog posts, social media posts, press releases, and other communication materials. It is important to regularly assess the needs and interests of the target audience and to create content that resonates with them.
• Setting a timeline: When will communications outreach take place? What are the relevant occasions you can angle your communications around, and when is the campaign slated to end? Having a clear timeline is important to stay organised and on track.
• Metrics and analytics: Regularly measure and analyse the results of your outreach to determine what’s working and what isn’t – from share of voice (SOV) to key message pull-through and engagement. These metrics will help you fine-tune your strategy and make adjustments as needed.

Tapping on expertise

Gone are the days where PR and communications agencies purely focused on securing media coverage to grow their clients’ brand visibility without an aim. In the current economic climate, PR agencies must truly understand the respective sectors of their clients and the subject matter for information about the brand to be represented according to their business objectives.

With the right steps in place, SMEs who understand the investment into strategic communications will benefit from working with agencies to help identify and actualise their next steps.

Furthermore, with global instabilities abounding, SMEs not familiar with crises benefit from having a trusted partner manage and mitigate these situations. In today’s digital age, it’s more important than ever to have a plan for handling negative publicity or reputation management.

Setting the right communications goals will enable SMEs to find their voices while building and maintaining positive relationships with stakeholders. This will lead to increased brand awareness and loyalty from their target groups, which will be crucial in their stage of business in today’s economy.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

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As the dreary funding winter continues to soar, at e27, we are kickstarting a new article series called: Line of Hire to understand an organisation’s culture and hiring philosophies to empower tech workers with the right growth tools and enable business owners to attract talent.

Farida Charania is the CEO and part of the founding team at Empauwer, which has created an AI-driven platform that helps companies engage and employ neurodiverse talents to cultivate a more inclusive workplace.

Charania is an economist by education, a banker by profession, and an entrepreneur by passion. She has lived and worked in Asia, Europe, and the UK. 

As the CEO of Empauwer, her mission is to build an inclusive workplace for every employee.

Charania talks about her company’s culture and hiring philosophies in this candid interview.

What personality traits/qualities do you look for in potential employees?

We seek candidates with good problem-solving abilities, a positive outlook, and the capacity to function well in a team. We also place a high priority on people with excellent communication skills and flexibility. For us, attitude is also critical, being a startup. We look for a can-do attitude in people we bring on board.

How do they fit into your company culture? Tell us a little more about your culture.

Innovation, teamwork, and open communication are valued in our organisational culture. We help our people reach their maximum potential by promoting a positive and welcoming workplace.

How do you foster transparency and encourage achievement in the workplace?

At Empauwer, we encourage openness by encouraging open communication and delivering frequent updates on the results and objectives of the organisation. Additionally, we support achievement by honouring and rewarding outstanding performance and offering chances for professional advancement.

Do you have a mental health policy? What does that look like?

A mental health policy is in place, yes. And because our crew is so small, it is essential. This entails enabling flexible work schedules and access to employee help programmes and resources to promote mental health.

Also Read: A tech worker should be all about improving customer experience: Kim Nguyen of Recruitery

WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Our policy is hybrid. Empauwer encourages employees to work from home and the office for convenience and productivity.

How should a tech worker prepare for the funding winter?

An IT professional can prepare for the funding winter by broadening their skill set, developing a solid network, and following market trends. It’s crucial to have a sound financial strategy in place as well.

How do you measure the performance of your employees?

We measure the performance of our employees through a combination of regular performance evaluations, goal-setting, and feedback.

Will you consider a moderately skilled person with great honesty or a highly skilled person with less honesty when hiring?

We place great importance on honesty in all of our workers. Our firm’s success depends on various factors, including skill, but honesty and integrity are crucial traits.

Do you encourage ‘intrapreneurship’ in your organisation?

Yes, we support intrapreneurship by allowing employees to assume leadership roles and lead change within the company.

How do you support upskilling for your employees?

We encourage our staff to attend conferences and workshops and training and development programs to support their upskilling. We also allow staff members to engage in creative initiatives and take on challenging responsibilities.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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