In recent years, Japanese startups have been increasingly expanding to South East Asia, looking to tap into the huge potential of the region’s markets. With a population of over 685 million, the region is highly attractive to ambitious startups, providing them with sizeable markets and access to rapidly growing economies.

In addition, the region’s diversity allows startups to easily adapt their business models to suit different markets. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has played an important role in creating the world’s largest free-trade area covering 30 per cent of the world’s population, reducing trade barriers within the region and across the globe.

This has made it easier for Japanese startups to enter South East Asian markets and take advantage of the region’s growth potential.

Also Read: Navigating a recession: How founders can protect revenue as funding dries up

Japanese startups have turned their attention to the South East Asia region to take advantage of these opportunities. The Rainmaking Expand: South East Asia programme has provided Japanese startups with the necessary expertise and networks to explore and target commercial opportunities in multiple locations. Companies such as IDDK and HACARUS have used the programme to gain access to a broader network of contacts, helping them to refine their approach to target markets and increase their success.

IDDK, a Japanese space tech company, is an example of a startup exploring the niche market of space technology in South East Asia. IDDK is leveraging its patented Micro Imaging Device technology, which replaces conventional microscopes, to target pharmaceutical, agriculture and beauty companies’ R&D divisions. While building up their solution within the Japanese market, they wanted to explore potential research partners, potential clients, and investors within South East Asia.

“We thought that the demand for our technology would be more prominent in countries that had not experienced the benefits of the International Space Station. Therefore, we thought it was important to expand into South East Asia,” shared Hiroaki Shibata from IDDK Co., Ltd.

By leveraging the expertise and network from the Rainmaking Expand programme, IDDK has identified Singapore as an important market for them to focus on, especially in relation to the opportunities in the healthtech sector. Through the learnings gained in the programme, the team at IDDK was able to negotiate and sign an MOU with Singapore Space & Technology Ltd (SSTL) for a strategic partnership to promote the use of space environments for biological experiments.

South East Asia has a growing middle class of consumers with increasingly high purchasing power driving up demand in multiple sectors. This provides a great opportunity for Japanese startups to establish a foothold in the region and tap into the potential of the markets by plugging their services into multiple industries.

Also Read: The rise of live commerce in Asia and adoption of BeLive by retailers

One startup leveraging these opportunities is HACARUS, a provider of AI-based solutions in sparse modelling to automate tedious and difficult inspection tasks. With a diverse workforce and ethos focused on a global perspective, the company has seen success in the region, particularly when working with partners who understand the ups and downs of implementing AI into a business line.

HARACUS identified South East Asia as an important and natural fit for their expansion, with similarities in complex manufacturing and quality focus, while experiencing high growth and plenty of need for their solutions to automate tedious and difficult inspection tasks.

HACARUS gained access to a broader network of connectors, consulting companies, logistics, and manufacturing companies after joining the Rainmaking Expand: South East Asia programme and leveraged this to evolve and refine their approach to their various target markets for higher success.

“We recognised that different parts of our value proposition resonate in different markets — in Singapore, we emphasise the energy and physical space-saving aspects, and in Malaysia, we focus on the time and quality throughput increases that our solutions bring,” stated Adrian Sossna, Head of Global Sales Group from HACARUS INC.

After connecting with a variety of key players, HACARUS is moving into the negotiation stage for multiple projects with customers in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia with the hopes of many more to come in 2023.

South East Asia offers a great opportunity for Japanese startups to expand. With a large population, supportive governments, and low costs of entry, the region is an attractive proposition for ambitious startups looking to tap into the potential of its markets. Japanese startups are increasingly taking advantage of the region’s opportunities, propelling the growth of their businesses and strengthening Japan’s regional influence.

Japanese Startups interested in entering South East Asia can now register for JETRO’s X-Hub Tokyo Singapore Course, run by Rainmaking Expand. Applications close July 24, 2023.

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In recent years, Singapore has emerged as a leading hub for data centres, hosting an impressive 60 per cent of the facilities in the region. These data centres have become integral to the country’s digital landscape and contribute seven per cent of its total electricity usage. While advanced infrastructure and connectivity make Singapore an attractive location for data centres, the high humidity levels present unique challenges for maintaining optimal performance conditions.

As energy-intensive facilities, data centres consume significant amounts of electricity, raising concerns about their environmental impact and energy security. Recognising these concerns, the Singapore government has implemented various initiatives and incentives to promote sustainable practices and improve energy efficiency among data centres. These efforts include using renewable energy sources like solar power, adherence to energy-efficient design standards, and adoption of best practices in cooling and power management.

The burgeoning growth of data centres in Singapore presents a delicate balance between satisfying the demands of an ever-evolving digital landscape and mitigating the environmental repercussions of energy consumption. But this is just one example of the many unique challenges these facilities face in Singapore.

The need for carbon reduction and sustainability in data centre operations

The growing reliance on data centres in today’s digital age has significantly increased global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions contribute to climate change and environmental degradation, making it crucial for data centres to address their ecological impact.

To mitigate these effects, focusing on reducing carbon emissions and increasing sustainability in data centre operations is essential. By doing so, data centres can play a pivotal role in combating climate change while meeting the ever-growing demands of the digital landscape.

Implementing sustainable practices within data centre operations benefits the environment and facilities. By adopting sustainable measures, data centres can reduce energy consumption, lowering operational costs.

Also Read: Collaboration with corporates plays a crucial role in climate tech startups’ success

Furthermore, sustainable practices improve resource efficiency and minimise waste, resulting in a more responsible and eco-friendly operation. As a result, data centres that prioritise sustainability are better positioned to adapt to future challenges, optimise performance, and contribute to a more sustainable world.

Factors that make data centres in Singapore energy-intensive

Singapore’s unique location and climate present specific challenges contributing to the energy-intensive nature of data centres in the city-state. Situated near the equator, Singapore experiences high humidity levels and a warm yearly climate. These conditions can adversely impact the performance of IT equipment, leading to increased energy consumption. To maintain optimal temperature and humidity levels, data centres require cooling systems, representing a significant energy usage source.

As a bustling hub for digital businesses, Singapore experiences a high demand for computing power. City-state data centres must operate around the clock to support businesses and provide uninterrupted services. This constant operation demands considerable energy, particularly for cooling systems that must run continuously to maintain appropriate environmental conditions. The relentless demand for computing power further exacerbates the energy consumption of data centres in Singapore.

The limited space in Singapore, a small island nation, adds another complexity to data centre operations. To maximise their use of space, data centres need to operate at high densities, which can lead to increased energy consumption.

In addition, cooling a smaller area with a high concentration of IT equipment requires more energy, making efficient cooling solutions even more crucial. Furthermore, some data centres in Singapore have been in operation for several decades, featuring outdated, less energy-efficient infrastructure. Upgrading these older facilities to improve energy efficiency can require significant investments, adding to the challenges faced by data centre operators.

Environmental impact of energy-intensive data centres

Energy-intensive data centres have a substantial environmental impact, with carbon emissions being a primary concern. These facilities require large amounts of energy to power and cool their IT equipment, and much of this energy is generated from fossil fuels. In Singapore, which has limited renewable energy resources, data centres significantly contribute to the city-state’s carbon emissions, exacerbating global climate change.

Beyond carbon emissions, data centres also require considerable resources to operate, including water, electricity, and raw materials for construction and IT equipment. In resource-limited Singapore, data centres can contribute to resource depletion and strain local infrastructure.

One notable example is the significant amount of water required for cooling, which can strain local water resources, particularly during drought. As Singapore grapples with the constraints of being a small island nation, the resource demands of data centres become an even more pressing issue.

Data centres also generate a considerable amount of electronic waste (e-waste), which can contribute to environmental degradation and pollution. 

Electronic waste harbours toxic substances that can infiltrate soil and water systems, posing significant risks to human well-being and the surrounding environment. In Singapore, where space for waste disposal is limited, managing e-waste presents a considerable challenge for data centres.

Therefore, addressing the environmental impact of energy-intensive data centres is crucial for ensuring a more sustainable future in Singapore and worldwide.

Sustainable cooling solutions for data centres

Data centres require considerable energy to power and cool their equipment, with cooling systems accounting for up to 40 per cent of a data centre’s total energy consumption. Therefore, sustainable cooling solutions can significantly reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while decreasing operational costs. Furthermore, by focusing on efficient cooling methods, data centres can contribute to a more sustainable future and optimise their overall performance.

One promising approach to sustainable cooling is liquid cooling, which offers a highly efficient alternative to traditional air conditioning systems. Liquid cooling involves circulating a coolant around the data centre equipment, effectively dissipating heat before returning the coolant to a re-cooling unit.

Also Read: How climate tech companies in Asia measure the impact of their work

This method can reduce energy consumption by as much as 30 per cent and even extend the lifespan of the equipment. By adopting innovative cooling solutions like liquid cooling, data centres can substantially decrease their energy footprint, minimise costs, and contribute to a more sustainable digital infrastructure.

Embracing sustainability: A collaborative approach for data centre operators and policymakers

Addressing the environmental impact of energy-intensive data centres in Singapore requires a concerted effort from data centre operators and policymakers. Implementing renewable energy solutions such as precision liquid cooling systems can significantly reduce energy consumption and associated costs for operators. Regular monitoring and optimisation of energy usage are also vital to identify areas for improvement and maintain efficient operations.

Policymakers play a critical role in driving change by developing and enforcing regulations that require data centres to prioritise sustainability. They can encourage the adoption of energy-efficient equipment, cooling solutions, and renewable energy sources through incentives or subsidies. Collaborating with industry leaders and stakeholders is essential for promoting sustainable practices and innovations in the data centre industry.

Ultimately, prioritising sustainability in operations and regulations is crucial for reducing data centres’ carbon footprint and energy consumption. By embracing sustainable practices, data centres can reduce costs and improve efficiency and contribute to a more sustainable future for all. Data centre operators and policymakers can help shape a more eco-conscious and responsible digital landscape in Singapore and beyond.

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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

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In 2023, proving that it’s safe for customers to do business with you is paramount. Customer trust is second only to customer data privacy, and the two go hand in hand when creating a reputable company.

Use these six strategies to build consumer trust and improve your brand’s data privacy at the same time.

Modernise your website to gain customer trust

Few things scare off potential customers faster than an outdated website. It isn’t just that hard-to-navigate pages, poor mobile compatibility, and bright flash animations are annoying — it’s because sites that haven’t changed in years are often unsecured. 

Bring your business’s website into the 21st century to attract and retain more visitors. In the process, you can ensure it has modern cybersecurity features to protect people’s data.

Turn on multi-factor authentication 

2022 saw a dramatic uptick in the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) in Southeast Asia. Hong Kong-registered a 13 per cent increase in the technology’s use, while those in the Philippines used it 25 per cent more than in previous years.

If you’ve ever visited a website that sent a temporary, time-sensitive passcode via SMS to your phone to use alongside your password, you’ve used MFA. Technology has become popular because it makes it much harder to steal data — in addition to hacking into a website, threat actors also have to gain access to a phone or tablet.

Turning on MFA might pose a minor annoyance to some website visitors, but most people appreciate the added security measure. It’s beneficial for creating a safe checkout system for online shopping. It also conveys that you take customer data privacy seriously.

Also Read: How to unlock possibilities through data privacy enhancing technologies

Employ AI to identify high-risk scenarios

Most cybersecurity software features an alert system to warn website owners of potential data breaches. For example, if someone fails multiple password attempts or logs into the site at an unusual time, the program will flag the unusual behaviour and issue an alert.

Software that uses AI goes a step further than just flagging suspicious activity. Some services also use machine-learning-powered alert scoring, sorting security alerts by urgency and relevance. You can prioritise the alerts to decide which ones need your attention most. 

You might think your website is impenetrable to hackers, but even the most reputable companies fall victim to cyberattacks. In 2019, WhatsApp — one of Asia’s leading messaging apps — experienced a breach, compromising 1.5 billion user accounts and giving hackers access to personal information. As another example, the International Committee of the Red Cross experienced a cyberattack in 2022 that compromised over 510,000 people’s data across 60 locations.

The truth is that anyone can experience a cyberattack, so you must prioritise customer data privacy to build consumer trust. That starts with using better cybersecurity software.

Create clean URLs

Your website’s address bar can tell visitors a lot about your business — intentionally or not. Long, complicated URLs with numbers, symbols and jumbled letters look less trustworthy than a curated URL describing the page. For example, on a page where customers can buy a pink handbag, the URL should end with something like “buy-pink-handbag” rather than the slug the site builder automatically assigns. 

Additionally, URLs with spelling errors are a red flag to many tech-savvy customers. That’s because untrustworthy sites often use subtle spelling mistakes to trick visitors into thinking they’re on a different page. Phishing scams often involve sites with names like Hotmail or Wells Fargo. Bloomberg.ma was a false news site designed to imitate Bloomberg.com, a legitimate financial news website.

Comb through your website’s URL slugs to ensure they reflect the actual content on the page and don’t contain spelling errors.

Explain your cookie policy

A popup explaining your website’s cookie policy might annoy some visitors, but many view it as a sign of good data management. By asking customers for consent to use their data — or allowing people to customise which data they provide — you can help build customer trust. In many cases, it’s also a legal requirement to have a transparent cookie use policy.

Also Read: Time to elevate the CFO’s stake in cybersecurity

Display security logos 

Another way to build consumer trust is through the use of logos. If your business is partnered with a network security company, include their logo on your website in a place customers can see it clearly. Make sure the image links to the company’s website and explains how the business protects data privacy.

For example, when customers visit your checkout page, put the security logo next to the section where people enter their credit card information. This will reassure people that your website takes extra steps to protect their data privacy.

Enhancing customer data privacy to gain consumer trust

Protecting customer data privacy is paramount for cultivating consumer trust and ensuring business operations run smoothly. A brand that conveys strong security measures is more likely to foster customer trust and develop a solid reputation.

Using modern cybersecurity and website design techniques, you can build a safe, trustworthy business where hackers fear to tread, attracting and retaining more customers in the long run.

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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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The post How to build customer trust with improved data privacy appeared first on e27.

In this episode, we are excited to welcome Xavier Mufraggi, CEO of SVN International Corporation and Partner at Eloquem Consulting. Prior to his role at SVN, Mufraggi was the CEO at YPO where he achieved a new record of 34,000 members in 150 countries. He was also previously the President and CEO of Club Med Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

In this conversation, we talk about why speaking the same language as locals can increase your ability to develop an understanding of the culture that’s required to build a successful expansion strategy in that market, the power of the authentic self as an integral part of personal and professional success, why skills are overrated in building teams (and what is the more valuable metric to look for instead), and the power of stories in better communication and reinforcing organisational vision.

Listen, subscribe, and leave a review now on Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

Also Read: How startups are using Hong Kong as the launchpad of their international expansion

This episode is sponsored by our partner ZEDRA. Learn more about how the ZEDRA team can support you in expanding to new markets here.⁠ ⁠

Get your copy of our Wall Street Journal Bestselling book, GLOBAL CLASS, a playbook on how to build a successful global business⁠.

SHOW NOTES:
1:10 – Video starts
2:42 – Mufraggi’s formative experience that started his interpreneurial career. His father was an executive at a big American company, so Xavier was able to travel around the world at a young age. For example, he lived in Africa as an 11-year old
7:54 – How he learned that understanding culture and people is a very important skill early on
13:54 – They key in turning around Club Med in North America (During his time as the CEO, the company achieved historical records every year from 2011 to 2019)
20:15 – Building trust and ensuring organisational alignment in YPO, the world’s most influential global leadership community
21:45 – What Mufraggi, who was then the CEO of Club Med North America, learned from going undercover as in the CBS Series Undercover Boss
29: 00 – How organisations and business leaders could impact millions of lives in a positive way
40:16 – Why skills are overrated in building teams (and what is the more valuable metric to look for instead)
47:37 – The power of stories in effective communication and reinforcing organisational vision
49:19 – The power of the authentic self as an integral part of personal and professional success

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The content was first published by Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

The post Think you know what leaders need most to build successful global organisations? Think again appeared first on e27.

As Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to experience a surge in popularity, investors in the global startup ecosystem are competing to seize the hottest, up-and-coming startups that are working on solutions in the field.

As we go through the first half of 2023, e27 recently published a list of investors that have invested in AI startups in SEA.

From this list alone, we can look at several notable trends that we can compile into the following list:

1. Global investors are eyeing SEA

The most outstanding part about these AI investors is the fact that many of them are global venture capital firms from the notable startup ecosystem in the world, such as the US. All of them see potential in SEA as one of the fastest-growing regions in the world.

Notable names included Darwin Ventures, RTP Global and Harbinger Ventures.

Also Read: How Transparently.AI uses Artificial Intelligence to detect accounting manipulation, fraud

2. These investors have a high focus on the consumer sector

Harbinger Ventures is an example of such a VC firm. It focuses on identifying and scaling high-growth companies in the consumer sector. It works exclusively with early-stage consumer brands led by exceptional female founders or mixed-gender founder founding teams and incentivises collaboration amongst its portfolio companies by giving each entrepreneur an equity stake in the portfolio.

3. Working in the deep tech and life sciences sector

There are at least two notable VC firms that are focusing on the deep tech and life sciences sectors.

Lunar Ventures is a deep-tech, seed-stage venture fund with a team of three deep-tech expert partners in Berlin. It writes a cheque of EUR300,000 to EUR1 million (US$325,000 to US$1.8 million) to technical teams with strong R&D backgrounds who build European products that will sell globally.

Another contender is Biospring Partners which invests in companies with the potential to “fundamentally shift how technology is utilised across the life sciences sector.” Biospring invests in growth-stage B2B companies driving innovation across the life sciences industry and beyond.

4. A great variety of focus in terms of stages

All the VC firms are investing in various stages of companies. While early stage startup investment continues to remain popular for AI startups in SEA, several VC firms are eyeing growth and late stage companies instead. For companies that are working in the deep tech and life sciences sectors, this is a reasonable approach as it allows potential investors to look at the viability of the technology over a longer period.

Also Read: These Artificial Intelligence startups are proving to be industry game-changers

Will this trend continue?

Our interpretation is ‘yes’, at least for the remainder of the year. If we compare to popular verticals from last years, such as Web3, there is a possibility that Gen AI and related solutions will have a stronger staying power in the market. This is due to its ability to prove to the wider public its benefits and advantages, which include its wide use cases.

We might even see local and regional investors looking more into the segment to seize opportunities in this sector.

How exactly can startups seize this opportunity? The good news about AI is that it is versatile in its use. Even companies that are working in sectors outside of AI have the opportunity to implement the technology in their solutions.

In addition to investment, this also means more opportunities for tech talents with an understanding of AI technologies in the near future. Startups will look towards expanding their teams, and this often means they might seek the support of their investors.

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Image Credit: Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash

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