The pandemic caused a tremendous shift in global business with the acceleration of distributed work and competition emerging from international markets.  In this new situation, the question arises: What are the important factors for businesses to operate at scale globally?

We’re seeing a new trend of companies embracing the acceleration of distributed work and competition emerging from global markets. We define them as global-class companies. They have the following characteristics:

• They take advantage of access to a larger pool of diverse talent

• They have local knowledge of how to scale the business in each unique market where their employees reside

• They have the ability to expand internationally early in their growth journeys

• They are made up of team members with sought-after skills to support an international footprint

There is a shift in business

According to a recent Accenture Business Futures report, “71 per cent of executives have already decentralised or are planning to decentralise decision-making in parts of their business,” and 82 per cent said they see their business as operating more like a “broad federation of enterprises,” given the “increasingly fragmented” business environment.

This shows that the focus of business operations is shifting from a top-down, centralised HQ model to one based on distributed success and teams with localized missions and focus. Two examples are Meta and Rocket.Chat’s shift to more remote work.

Meta and Rocket.Chat scatters exec team

An example of a company embracing this new future of work is Meta. The Hustle reports that Meta’s execs are working all over the world. The company’s HQ is in Menlo Park, California, but its top team members are dialling in anywhere from Cape Cod to Israel.

Also Read: How Uber reached global scale by empowering localisation

Another example is Rocket.Chat, the world’s largest open-source communications platform. Rocket.Chat has HQs in US and Brazil but operates fully remotely with employees from 70+ cities globally.

Despite being remote, finding opportunities to connect in person are still important. In understanding this, Rocket.Chat’s Co-Founder and CEO Gabriel Engel shared how they set this up: The company’s HQ in Porto Alegre, Brazil, is located in a house with a swimming pool, an outdoor kitchen for weekly barbecues, and a large indoor kitchen.

Engel explains, “Everyone doesn’t have to go there all the time, but it’s an important representation of what the company cares about our headquarters is more about finding interaction and building relationships than being designed for people to just do their work.”

Companies like Meta and Rocket.Chat are realising the benefits of making decisions at the edges instead of clinging to the command-and-control mantra of the past. This goes hand in hand with decentralised innovation, where best practices from anywhere can be implemented globally instead of only being top-down from headquarters.

Introducing the global class mindset

If the way that companies have successfully built international businesses in the past is less effective in today’s global economy, then what should you do?

The answer is: Embrace the global class mindset.

This mindset is based on the notion that everyone must be a leader when expanding globally, not just those at HQ. It doesn’t matter whether the company is scaling in one country or 100; it’s about having the right approach to global growth.

The global class mindset means having the vision to think globally from day one, leveraging a decentralised talent strategy, positioning HQ to be an enabler and supporter of local markets, and implementing a strategy that finds the local way of running a business. This is in direct opposition to the legacy mindset.

Vision: Think global from day one

A “born global” company is a myth. A company must find validation and prove scale in an initial market before expanding to build the right foundation for international success. Instead, global class companies think globally from day one by building all aspects of their business — product, team, culture, operations — to localise for multiple markets.

Also Read: The global fintech market: Getting a piece of the pie

Talent and culture: Distributed strategy

The global class believes that talent is skills-driven, not location-driven. They hire where the talent is, understanding that sourcing talent only from their local area is limiting.

HQ role: Enabler and support

Within global class companies, HQ’s primary roles are to support and enable local teams, not command and control them. These companies practice two-way innovation, looking to gather insights from best practices implemented in every local market as much as sharing a best practice discovered at HQ.

Strategy: Local way

Global class companies strive to find a balance, doing things the local way. They localise the business to fit the local market while staying true to company principles.

In summary, companies born during and after the pandemic will look and operate differently than companies founded before. Like the examples of Meta and Rocket.Chat, these smart companies are taking advantage of access to a larger pool of talent as one way to acquire local knowledge in scaling the business in each unique market where its employees reside.

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Singapore-based global investment firm Lighthouse Canton has made the first close of its newly launched venture debt fund at US$20 million with global institutions and family offices.
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The firm’s regional venture debt strategy comprises a Singapore-based variable capital company (VCC) for investments in Southeast Asia and a Category II alternative investment fund (AIF) for investments in India.

Lighthouse Canton, which will provide debt capital to tech-enabled companies in the region, targets raising US$100 million for this new fund.

For companies with sound business models and viable unit economics, venture debt is an alternative source of growth funding, which is gaining traction amongst regional startup companies now.
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In recent years, Asia’s startup ecosystem has witnessed a boom, attracting 38 per cent of all venture capital deal flows globally (source: State of Venture 2022 Report, CBInsights) last year. At the end of 2022, there were 1,205 unicorns globally, with 27 per cent hailing from Asian countries such as China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Also Read: What is venture debt financing? How can startups use it to their advantage?

The Indian startup ecosystem is the third largest in the world, only behind the US and China, with nearly 10 per cent of all global unicorns based in India — and is posed to grow further.
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“As the pace of venture capital activity continues to grow, it is logical that we would see a rise in venture debt demand,” said Sanket Sinha, Lighthouse Canton’s Global Head of Asset Management. “In more mature venture ecosystems such as the US and Europe, venture debt has risen to 15-20 per cent of the total VC funding, whereas this proportion is less than 2 per cent in India and Southeast Asia. Given the growth of the venture ecosystem in India, we see tremendous opportunity for venture debt, and we expect the size of this market to grow 3-4x in the next five years.”

Headquartered in Singapore, Lighthouse Canton is a global investment institution with wealth and asset management capabilities. It oversees over US$3 billion worth of assets under management and advisory (as of September 30, 2022).

The new debt fund is the second launched within one year focused on the venture ecosystem. Earlier this year, it partnered with Nueva Capital to launch its maiden venture capital fund, LC Nueva, focused on pre-series A and series A companies in India.

Lighthouse Canton also runs Founders’ Ecosystem, which helps startups and founders enhance performance and plan for their personal and business legacies at various stages in their life cycles. The initiative provides added value through other venture investments, business solutions, and personal wealth management services.

These solutions range from funding solutions for companies across the capital structure to pre- and post-monetisation funding needs. It also works closely with the founders and senior management on business structuring and personal wealth solutions.

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2022 wasn’t the easiest of times for tech companies. Tesla Stocks plummeting, Facebook retrenchments, FTX crash — all this has culminated in a terrible time for tech companies, and this has further been exacerbated by record high I/r, further fueling a funding and tech winter. Whether you work in a Fortune 599, SME, or startup, we still have to run our businesses and close deals.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel around the globe to seal deals with a myriad of companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies and across locations in the US, Europe and even Greater China.

It’s fascinating how different everyone’s objectives are. Some looks at achieving higher MAU growth, and some looks at reducing the cost of acquisition, some looks at acquiring new markets and revenue streams.

As different as it is, it all boils down to certain key principles — can we support the company to solve a pain point and achieve its goals? And if our answer is yes, we can still do some good business. 

Here are some learnings along the bumpy road of sales that I would like to share.

Understanding your prospects

With the pressure of month/quarter-end targets coming in, more often than not, we are often overly zealous to sell to our prospects without considering whether they have an actual need for our product.

We are often too eager to sell on features with it being the best and fastest software without knowing whether the speed of a software is a pain point for them. Did we enquire more to understand whether there’s a legacy system they would need to change? Or have they just bought new software already, and we are too late?

Conversely, if we get to understand deeper, could we actually gather from them that there’s a management mandate for them to look for such a new system? Could we even understand a ballpark figure of their budget — such that we don’t price ourselves out of the bid? What is the more important requirement for the team?

Also Read: A tech worker’s 2023 recession game plan

And if we understand this deeply, we could translate how our product can truly solve their pain points and deliver measurable gains for them. An important thing to note, too, is that clients would feel that we care to know about their situation and when they reveal their side of the story between both parties,  there would be this “magical” bond that is created.

Once this happens, there would inadvertently lead to an interest to know more about your product, as you have heard their side of the story, and now it is fair that they would want to know more from you.

This is where you can do your amazing presentation on how your product can indeed be a value match for them. If all goes well — bam! You should have the deal in no time at all (bearing in mind the legal, procurement, and finance loops that you would need to overcome along the way).

Finding the right person to speak to

At times this can seem to be deceivingly straightforward. Certain schools of thought would be — let’s target the CEO, the Founder, and we would close this 100k deal! Does it often happen? Or we identify a job title like Marketing Manager/Sales Director/VP, and we close this 10k per month recurring SAAS deal? Is it as straightforward as it seems?

Sometimes if we are lucky, it happens, but more often than not, it doesn’t happen. 

No hard and fast rule on this, but my take is for us to truly understand what the roles and responsibilities of this individual are. Is a Marketing Manager fully in charge of all marketing spent, or would this be actually decided by the VP of the company? Would a CEO/Founder really decide on a new CRM/productivity tool, or would they delegate the decision to the VP of Sales?

In a nutshell, we need to understand their goals and whether they are the key decision-makers for this initiative. All we need to do is just spend five minutes understanding your prospect’s key responsibilities respectfully.

Recalling one experience where I spent hours and more than 10 calls speaking to one of my supposed targeted job titles and not spending time to understand their goals and whether they hold the budget. My thoughts were that this individual would talk to me so much because he/she would like to give this contract to me. In the end, it just turned out that the prospects enjoyed having a good conversation! Needless to say, I didn’t hit the target for the month. 

As we all know, time is money. How can we then avoid such a situation and hedge against it?

Engaging multiple individuals within a company

For most companies, unless it’s buying a cup of cappuccino for themselves, most deals involve multiple individuals making a purchase. Regardless of the size of the company and even in mundane situations, just to decide the type of corporate gifts, the colour of the banner or even the website tagline — there would be at least two individuals that would need to come to a consensus. Why not, then, start this process early on?

Also Read: How to use email sequences to win more B2B sales deals

More often than not, if we have just an individual sitting in a meeting, the chance of conversion reduces significantly —  as there’s a high chance the prospect may not be the decision maker, and he may be attending the meeting because he/she has a KPI for the number of meetings.

On the other hand, they may be genuinely keen on what you have to offer, but they are flooded with too many tasks, and your proposal is probably at the bottom two on their priority ladder.

Adding on, there’s basically no one internally to keep them accountable for what you have suggested! Before you know it, their boss, the real decision maker, has allocated the budget to another company! And down the drain goes all your hours of hard work in preparing the proposal, call and follow-up.

Now, here’s my proposition on why we should involve at least two representatives on a call. Firstly, just imagine what goes on behind the scenes when two people would like to meet you. Do they say there’s nothing better to do this afternoon, let’s meet up with a vendor? No.

Most of the time, it’s a case of, this product could potentially be beneficial for us, shall we sit in to listen together?

Secondly, if one of the job titles forgot to follow up with you, there would be another to remind him/her during a follow-up from yourself. There would be accountability internally from the team and to you and your organisation.

Thirdly, you just save yourself about two hours if you would have to travel to the place to pitch to the other job title, which you can then allocate to another new sales prospect. Woohoo, time was saved, and the pipeline doubled!

Does a “yes, I’m keen” translate to a signed contract?

Some of us often get excited when we hear that the prospect mentioned that he/she is keen to make a purchase with us. We forecast this as a deal at our month-end, indicate it as a part of our pipeline, send a contract and wait for the surreal and beautiful signature to return.

Also Read: How can businesses double their revenue in a post-COVID-19 world

One week went by, and the mailbox was still the same. Multiple follow-up emails are met with radio silence. One month went by, and still no contract. What went wrong here? I would like to imagine this situation as one with crows cawing at the back and us just waiting for a beautiful dove to deliver this signed contract across the globe.

We need to understand that, more often than not, people would love to give you the answer you would love to hear, and their way of conveying this would differ from geography to geography.

I used to pitch a product to a company, and they told me they were keen. I told them that the most basic model would start from a few thousand, and they said yes. I told them the best and most expensive would be close to six figures, and they also indicated a yes.

This makes me slightly doubtful about their actual intention. How is it possible that they would buy anything and everything?  This is a situation where we need to understand whether there is a true buying intention or if they are sugarcoating not to hurt our feelings.

Possible ways for us to understand their full intention and the thorough process would be to drop a follow-up email for them to indicate that you would send a contract to them and ask them when they could return the contract in terms of response timing and written interest. Then, attempt to schedule a follow-up call within the next couple of days to run through the deliverables. 

If this is met with interest and positive responses, you may actually be onto something. If this is somehow met by radio silence, we could probably just mark this deal as a loss and probably reconnect at a better time again. 

To sum up, I know some of these may seem pretty straightforward, but I hope for others, this would provide some fundamental sales tips early on for you to close more deals in 2023.

I understand that it’s going to be a challenging season for many, but if my articulating my two cents could help you close just another deal for 2023, it would indeed be very heartening.

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Total food delivery spending in Southeast Asia (SEA) grew a modest five per cent to reach US$16.3 billion in 2022 after two years of COVID-19-driven deliveries boom, according to a new report by Singapore-based Momentum Works.

In its third edition, the organisation offers in-depth insights into SEA’s six core food delivery markets –Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

The report revealed that for the first time in three years, growth was driven primarily by the region’s smallest food delivery markets, including the Philippines (increased by US$0.8 billion), Malaysia (US$0.6 billion) and Vietnam (US$0.3 billion). Meanwhile, larger markets such as Singapore (decreased by US$0.4 billion), Thailand (US$0.4 billion) and Indonesia (US$0.1 billion), recorded a GMV decline as COVID-19 became endemic and economies reopened.

It also stressed the urgency for companies to focus on profitability.

“Major players pivoted away from cost-intensive business models such as dark stores for groceries and dark kitchens for food delivery. This trend is expected to continue into 2023, with Shopee planning to refocus on its core business in e-commerce, and DeliveryHero rumoured to be divesting its operations in a few Southeast Asia countries,” it wrote.

Also Read: foodpanda: Taking Asia’s food delivery ecosystem through the pandemic and beyond

The report stated that as of the end of 2022, Grab is estimated to account for 54 per cent or US$8.8 billion of the region’s food delivery GMV, a 16 per cent increase from the year before.

Foodpanda is estimated to contribute 19 per cent or US$3.1 billion of the region’s GMV, a nine per cent decline from 2021.

Gojek and Shopee are estimated to maintain their food delivery GMV at 2021 levels at US$2 billion and US$0.9 billion, respectively.

“The competitive landscape became a lot more muted in 2022 compared to 2021. New entrants such as Shopee and AirAsia have gone back to focus on their core sectors, while incumbent players adopt a much more conservative expansion strategy. With profitable growth being the biggest focus now, food delivery players are experimenting with a variety of strategies to improve delivery margins and strengthen consumer loyalty via advertising, subscription programmes, and more. We believe profitability is attainable with volume, density and operational efficiency,” said Jianggan Li, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Momentum Works.

In experimenting with new strategies, players with a large consumer reach and merchant base will have the edge over others.

Also Read: Are Singapore’s food delivery apps charging users more during a pandemic?

The report also stated more defined online and offline strategies are also expected as merchants differentiate their channel offerings: Food delivery continues to form a substantial part of a merchant’s overall sales, even after the dine-in resumption.

“As a result, merchants are creating more differentiated offerings and promotions for dine-in and food delivery to reduce cannibalisation and maximise sales for both channels. Similarly, delivery players are expanding into the offline space through features such as dine-in coupons, restaurant reviews, and more.”

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Mayani, an agri-fisheries startup providing sustainable market linkage to smallholder farmers and fisherfolk in the Philippines, has secured US$1.7 million in oversubscribed seed funding anchored by Silicon Valley agtech VC AgFunder through its GROW Impact Fund.

Atlas Ventures, Accelerating Asia Ventures, Ocean Impact Organization, TheVentures, and Plug and Play Ventures also joined.

Jimenez family (known for establishing broadcasting giant GMA), the families behind the Malaysian conglomerate OSK Group, and Philippine retailer Abenson Group also participated.

This deal marks AgFunder’s maiden investment in the Philippines.

Mayani’s technological stack was initially funded through grants from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Also Read: Can agritech solve the world’s growing food security problem?

Mayani began its supply chain operations in Southern Luzon by focusing on fresh lowland produce such as lettuce and eggplant. It has since expanded in various agri-categories, including poultry, processed commodities like Liberica coffee, and high-value fruits such as honeydew gold.

Currently, the startup directly sources harvests from a grassroots network of over 139,000 smallholder farmers across five regions in Philippines’s populous and largest island Luzon.

It then leverages demand-matched supply data to achieve efficiencies in a shorter route-to-market with fewer intermediaries as they deliver fresh produce and even sustainably caught seafood downstream to buyers. Those buyers comprise B2B players like international hotels and restaurants, food processors, and supermarket chains such as WalterMart, Robinsons Group, and MerryMart.

The resulting value chain creates cost savings on the part of buyers while making their supply chain more resilient and dependable.

On the other hand, the farmers’ farm-gate and post-catch incomes are boosted by at least 30 per cent while reducing food loss by 20 per cent.

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Mindtera, an employee assistance programme (EAP) startup in Indonesia, has closed its combined seed and seed extension round at US$850,000 funding.

East Ventures led the round with commitments from Seedstars International Ventures and other unnamed angels.

The company will use the money to expand the scope of its B2B operations and develop the products.

Founded in 2021 by Tita Ardiati and Bayu Puspito Bhaskoro, Mindtera is a platform that uses data-driven insights to build a productive and happy workplace. It manages employee development, engagement, and well-being, following employees from hiring to retirement.

It offers two platforms to address this problem.

Also Read: Mindtera bags funding led by East Ventures to grow its personal growth learning platform

Mindtera Pro is an analytics dashboard and app with an advanced suite of assessment tools designed to collect and analyse employee feedback to improve their company experience.

Mindtera Plus serves corporations by providing access to coaching and development consultants who can help tackle various challenges in employee management and culture.

The startup claims it has onboarded over 10,000 employees and fostered an increase of 94 per cent in employee well-being awareness. Providing HR optimisation for key industry players, Mindtera is leading the charge to optimise work culture across the country.

CEO Tita Ardiati said: “Investing in human capital is tricky. The benefits are not immediately visible, but the company will see a sustained impact if you build a balanced and healthy working environment. Human resources are a valuable asset for a company’s growth. Happy people inspire growth, so look after your people, and you will see productivity.”

During the Great Resignation back in 2021, a study from the global company McKinsey showed that if employees are not mentally well, it will affect the business’s bottom line in many ways.

The World Health Organization (WHO) also stated that in addition to impacting relationships and societies, mental health issues like depression and anxiety also cost the global economy US$1 trillion yearly, predominantly from reduced productivity.

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Let’s talk about food fraud, an ongoing issue that needs to be taken very seriously. Again and again, the media are feeding us new upsetting, often stomach-churning revelations about appalling lapses in the global food industry. Sometimes they threaten public health.

About 300,000 children fell sick in 2008 after Chinese dairy manufacturers adulterated infant formulas with the chemical melamine, causing, in many cases, serious kidney damage. Consumer confidence in beef products took a hit in 2013 when authorities in the UK and Ireland discovered several samples that contained different quantities of horse meat.

More recently, Malaysia was shaken by a large-scale, cartel-like criminal practice that, over decades, mislabelled imported pork, horse and kangaroo meat as halal-certified. Several government officials were bribed along the way.

While there’s not always a direct criminal intent, the problem often points to a lack of transparency and product information. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that every year, 600 million people worldwide fall ill after the consumption of unsafe food. It shows undeniably that trust in global and local food supply chains is of greatest interest.

Fighting food fraud

Fortunately, today, technology offers a solution. QR codes on product packaging, geolocation and blockchain technology are gaining momentum in the sector, as modern digital tools are no longer out of reach, even in developing countries.

Also Read: The opportunities and challenges Singapore’s agritech sector faces

They now allow to closely track foodstuffs “from farm to table,” enhancing credibility, safety, and food security. Furthermore, AI and Machine learning ensures the timely identification of possible intervention before any significant problem gets out of hand.

It should slowly end the different fraudulent practices we are still observing today: Adulteration when one or more components of the product are fake or tampering when a product and package are used fraudulently. There’s fraud by addition, where fake goods are added to the actual one to increase their quantity.

We have product imitations and copycats of the actual product sold to unsuspecting consumers, which can now be tracked down through machine learning and AI tools. Items might also be distributed or sold outside of permitted territories, a practice we call diversion. A large number of actors involved in the production and distribution of food pose a great risk to product safety, threatening supply chain integrity.

From farm to fork

The farm-to-table or farm-to-fork approach started with the idea of simplifying the food chain by establishing a direct line to the producer. Consumers should be able to buy straight from the farm, creating trust and a different type of relationship.

Fraud, nevertheless, can still happen along the way, and this is where technology comes into play. It allows customers to access the data on the product and producer, nutritional values and ingredients, its origin and journey to the point of purchase.

Producers share information, such as third-party-certified tests and lab reports, that support their claims and upload them to distributed ledgers, or blockchains, where they are publicly visible, scrutable, and where they can’t be altered. Geolocation tools track the shipment on its way to the checkout. Temperature sensors and time stamps verify the projected journey through ports and warehouses. Smart contracts will only release the goods to authorised parties.

Also Read: How the pandemic inspires Natural Trace to create a food supply chain traceability solution

At the point of sale, consumers can get the full picture by scanning the QR code that verifies from the time of harvesting to the arrival at the market. More accurate data allows buyers to confirm the exact condition of the product, which also helps to reduce wastage.

Can’t stop the tech

Technology is also progressing in the field of quality control. New techniques like DNA barcoding and fingerprinting are analysing food samples to detect the grade of its purity or to check if they have been mixed with lower-grade varieties.

Earlier this year, Yale-NUS researchers found through DNA barcoding that out of 89 seafood samples from restaurants and supermarkets, about one quarter was mislabeled or sold under a different name.

As consumers demand more sustainable and transparent food sourcing and distribution, they will further push to get exactly what they are promised on the package. For the food industry in Asia and the world, this means that they are in for a tech upgrade.

New tools, including blockchain, RFID tags, and sensors, offer the ability to track food in real time. Gone are the days of the paper document, which will forever be associated with inefficiency, bureaucracy and low-grade security. Let’s get serious in fighting food fraud!

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Singapore-based Locad, which provides a cloud supply chain for brands to store, pack, ship, and track orders for e-commerce and omnichannel retail, has raised US$11 million in Series A funding led by Reefknot Investments, a fund anchored by Temasek and logistics powerhouse Kuehne & Nagel.

Returning investors Sequoia India, its startup programme Surge, Febe Ventures, Antler, Access Ventures, JG Summit and JG Digital Equity Ventures, and Western Technology Investment also joined.

The funding will be used for network expansion, product development, and hiring talent across Asia Pacific.

To date, Locad has served over 200 brands across Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Australia. It claims to have shipped more than two million orders.

“Ultimately, our goal is to enable a frictionless movement of physical goods and data across the supply chain for any brand and merchant. This enables anyone to sell anywhere, on any sales channel, and deliver seamlessly,” said Locad CEO and Co-Founder Constantin Robertz.

“As modern consumer brands transform to direct-to-consumer and omnichannel retail, we have seen that the supply chain and fulfilment infrastructure is a key barrier to scaling the business for many brands. The bar is only rising further due to higher customer expectations for fast delivery and the complexity driven by an increasing number of sales channels,” he added.

Locad supports the e-commerce and omnichannel growth of global consumer brands such as Havaianas, Recki Benckiser, and Emma Sleep in the region.

“Over the next five years, we expect to build the region’s largest network of warehouses, enabling next-day delivery in Tier 1 to 3 cities across the region, and make this available to brands and merchants in one integrated platform,” concluded Constantin Robertz.

Also Read: Startups should adopt the glocalisation mode of design and thinking: Reefknot Investments’s Marc Dragon

Locad is the logistics engine enabling e-commerce brands with a cloud supply chain to grow their omnichannel business and automatically store, pack, ship, and track orders across Asia Pacific.

In July 2021, Locad received US$4.9 million in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge.

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Three years serving as a senior manager at VIISA – one of Vietnam’s longest-established accelerators, Phuc Nguyen realised the gap between local SMEs, which account for about 98 per cent of the total enterprises in Vietnam, and the resources and knowledge they need to grow to a sustainable scale. 

Access to private consulting services might be one solution, but it is hindered by expensive consulting fees. Current accelerator programmes are also only available to selective technology firms that are also required to give up some shares in exchange for dedicated support and funding.  

As VIISA turned over a new leaf by halting its accelerator programme in 2021 to fully focus on venture investments, in April 2022, Nguyen teamed up with Barrett Le, a multi-award product user experience (UX) expert, to co-found a new organisation purpose-built for Vietnamese entrepreneurs.

Their new venture, named Emakase, received the mentoring support of Alexander Jansen, an expert provided by the Swiss Entrepreneurship Programme to assist VIISA in early 2020 and follow the inspiration from Japanese cuisine’s “Omakase” concept, in which customers leave it up to the chef to select and serve special dishes.

New age business consulting

“Unlike other incubators and accelerators, Emakase does not serve startups that are ‘too early’. Instead, it targets teams that have already entered the market and generated some forms of traction, or middle-market companies whose annual revenues are no more than US$75 million,” said Nguyen. “We provide business support like an accelerator but do not fund the business or take equity.”

The preliminary report, or Emakase’s comprehensive diagnosis through a 360-degree interview with the client company’s founders and stakeholders, will state the problems as well as compatible solutions to strengthen or scale up the firm.

Also Read: Vietnamese EV maker VinFast files for US IPO

When the client signs on to use any proposed solutions or services, “chefs” from Emakase will convene a consulting board meeting and construct a master plan to implement the strategy within a set time frame and a suitable level of impact. 

“After receiving our initial feedback through the preliminary reports, client companies need to be very honest with themselves to decide whether or not they should pay for services that we suggest to provide for them,” Nguyen added. “This requires them to have higher ‘self-awareness’ than many early-stage startups that often participate in typical accelerator programmes.”

With seven partners specialising in fields such as people management, marketing, finance, management, creativity, and innovation, Emakase is structuring its “menu” in three “flexible and customisable” lists of services: fundraising consulting, management consulting, and innovation consulting. 

Also Read: Vietnamese on-demand warehousing platform Wareflex closes pre-seed round

The fees, at least for Emakase’s current seven projects with clients, are “much more affordable” than that of large consulting organisations or deal advisory firms, according to Nguyen, though he said that his firm still needs a tweak to the pricing to better value its services. 

“We will ensure the deliverables, but not the client’s sure-fire result as they are still the owner of their firms and should have the highest responsibility for their successes or failures,” Nguyen added. 

Accelerator-as-a-service model

Emakase also spots a new trend buoyed by the pandemic-induced digital transformation: Vietnamese corporations seek to boost their innovation capacities to adapt to changing behaviours of customers. As a result, the consulting house forms its “accelerator-as-a-service” model, which offers corporations, government and non-government bodies tailored and full-fledged innovation programmes. 

Other ecosystem players echoed this sentiment, with Zone Startups Vietnam’s plan to offer a “basket” of startups’ technology solutions to big corporations and ThinkZone’s fund-raising from six local conglomerates for its US$60 million Fund II to finance high-growth startups.

Adding to the mix, Emakase looks to connect these ecosystem resources and even become a ‘sub-vendor’ for other ecosystem players to jointly serve corporations’ needs.

“Any collaborations should be grounded on commercial purposes as it will clarify the positioning and value of each player toward third-party companies,” said VIISA CFO Hieu Vo, considering Nguyen’s new venture as a useful supplement to bridge the service gap in the ecosystem.

Following the “consult-build-operate-transfer” process, Emakase offers programmes ranging from hackathons, incubation, and acceleration, to professional competency enhancement and business competency training, for various ecosystem stakeholders. It also especially emphasises firms’ integrity and transparency and says no to “under-the-table lobby” when providing services.

“With the government’s strong support for innovation, I believe there is fertile land for ‘upright’ innovation consulting businesses,” Nguyen said.  “If consulting firms do anything wrong or ineffective, they will quickly face blowback because this space is growing fast, and the outcomes of innovation efforts are soon to be seen.”

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Image credit: Emakase

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Meghan Bridges is the Marketing and Operations Director at Rainmaking Innovation. Based in Osaka, Japan, Bridges specialises in driving innovation, marketing, and operations. She currently works across multiple projects in the APAC region, providing help and support to startups looking to scale and enter new markets.

She is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read his thought leadership articles here).

In this candid interview, she talks about her personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

I work in marketing for a venture-building company, which makes new companies and helps other firms grow. I work on sharing the stories of who we are and what we do, and why we are so passionate about it.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

Highlight: Having such a fantastic team passionate about what they do, fiercely kind, and going out of their way to support one another. You read about this sort of company culture sometimes, but being in a team that is the full embodiment of it is sometimes like an amazing dream – but real!

Challenge: Cutting through the noise. There are so many remarkable technologies, stories and things out there to explore and for me to also share. The world is vast, and not everyone looks in the same places, so you have to be on top to ensure that the messages we want to share and the people we reach are seeing those messages. This is something anyone in marketing has to deal with.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

Upwards and onwards! I am passionate about the growth and development of ventures and startups. Working in a creative position to support and talk about the fantastic opportunities has been excellent.

Over the next five years, I see myself broadening my understanding and scope of the content I create and guiding someone else down their ideal path, as my co-workers and mentors have done for me in Rainmaking so far.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Hands down, Notion. I have a weird passion for building a database for everything, be it research, articles to read, what to pack when travelling etc. Notion has been my go-to for that. I am also a very active user of Glasp, which allows me to highlight and take notes on the massive amount of content I go through in a week and synthesise it.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I am freakishly good at breaking things unintentionally. I’m like a magnet for running head-first into bugs or finding weird issues in things.

Also Read: Consistency is key in life: Baradhwaj R of MoEngage

My work needs me to be adaptable and flexible, but I am constantly wondering how long it will take until I break the next thing I use (sorry, devs who have had to deal with me on customer support).

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

Very much hybrid, with a leaning towards work from home.

I discovered during the pandemic that my focus and output improved when working from home; however, you cannot replace the value and relationship you build with your team at the office. I am currently working on a hybrid model to balance these two, which has worked well for me.

What would you tell your younger self?

You got this! School and your education are incredibly valuable, but they do not drive your future. It is you as a person and your passion. Don’t be afraid of taking leaps into new opportunities, even if you think you are not a match for them. The leaps I have taken in life have led me on fantastic journeys and growth.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Curious, shy, and passionate.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

This changes so regularly that I like to keep my mind engaged, so I’m exploring different worlds in video games – mostly indie titles – or deep in a fantasy book series.

On the odd occasion, I will work on a personal project, which could be anything from coding classes to compiling previous fiction writings of mine to brush up on or rewrite.

What are you currently reading/listening to/ watching?

I just finished The War of Two Queens by Jennifer Armentrout and am waiting for the next book in the Green Riderseries from Kristen Britain. I currently have The Bitter Truth from Evanescence on loop on Spotify and just finished the docuseries called Ancient Apocalypse on Netflix.

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