Key learnings:

• It is crucial to pursue business fundamentals instead of fundraising metrics
• Stay focused on your north-star vision
• Be bold and seize all opportunities to scale up
• This is a good time to improve margins and unit economics
• Don’t stop experimenting

The year 2022 was not so kind to the startup world. The industry was slowly getting on its feet following a tumultuous COVID-19 crisis until the Russia-Ukraine war jeopardised its plans. The war pushed the whole world to the brink leading to an economic crisis. This affected startups, too, as they struggled to raise funding to stay on in the game.

As the crisis unfolded, many startups laid off thousands of employees to cut costs. Hundreds of employees of Sea Group, Carousell, and Ula, among many others, were let go. The situation continues to be gloomy, and many predict the global economy is inching closer to a recession.

Overall, 2022 was tough and a year full of great learning.

In this feature, founders/top executives of 30 startups across Southeast Asia share their key learnings in 2022.

(The comments are arranged in the alphabetical order of the names of the respondents)

Ami Sugiyama of Secai Marche says after Malaysia’s COVID-19-induced movement control order, the company experienced many challenges in 2022. “It took a lot of work to raise funding and accelerate compared to previous years because of the economic recession, which is the time for us to be patient. We realised that unit economics is always essential to be sustainable. Under this economic recession or any unexpected situation, a startup should establish a firm footing in our market and achieve a healthy growth curve.”

Amit Saberwal of RedDoorz says that the past three years have brought to the forefront the importance of resilience and agility. “The pandemic taught us the significance of technology in diversifying revenue sources. It forced us to find new sources of revenue as occupancy rates dipped, travel restrictions came in, and these same avenues are still going strong as rooms all around start filling up again.”

Swiftness in the decision at the onset of a crisis could make or break a company

“The second learning was that swiftness in the decision at the onset of a crisis could make or break a company. We became transparent with our team and hotel partners about the gravitas of the situation. This led to all of us working in a united manner to overcome every obstacle that came our way,” he adds.

According to Anggia Meisesari of TransTrack.ID, organisations need to build a viable business model focused on generating revenue in the long run while controlling unit economics and burn rates. “Recognise the balance sheet to keep informed about the company’s financial standing and make strategic moves to improve its financial health. A balance sheet can help identify trends in a business’s finances, particularly regarding relationships with customers and suppliers.”

Also Read: How a Muslim female founder is making waves in Indonesia’s male-dominated logistics-tech sector

“We must make sure to allocate our funds properly and have a solid plan for spending our money. Make sure to have someone who understands startup finances on our team to help make sure we are making the best decisions with our money,” she adds.

Asheesh Chandra of Kristal.AI mentions that a sustainable business model with robust unit economics trumps the temporary high of obtaining high valuations in private markets – the focus must move from valuation to revenues and cash flows.

“Both 2020 and 2022 have taught very different lessons to the world. As any startup treads these economic scenarios, the leaders and managers in every role need to adapt to the new normal and send consistent messages across their teams,” he shares.

Adapt to the new normal and send consistent messages across your teams

Chandra asks businesses to be the closest to their clients in the toughest times. “This is especially relevant in the wealth management industry (though relevant to all) as clients face unfavourable portfolio movements with inflation and geopolitics creating tremendous uncertainty.”

Benjamin Harris of watchTowr remarks that in the early days of any business, job descriptions and roles are fluid — you will never accurately capture a role and its many aims or what it will become within a couple of months. “Therefore, I’ve always held the mantra of ‘hire clever people, do clever things’. I enjoy hiring people who will naturally be able to handle this level of fluidity, this level of change and this level of unpredictability because they are intrinsically smart, intelligent people.”

“In our early days, we created roles and filled them once a problem had been identified and was already a big enough problem to need solving yesterday. This created challenges; without quick action, it can reduce speed.”

Deepansh Jain of Scooterson believes that year 2022 taught the company that a strong community could inspire and motivate them. “This keeps us going despite the multiple hurdles. We received incredible support when giving regular updates.

Since moving our office and operations to the JTC Launchpad @One- North, we have found a particularly collaborative community and a heavy sense of belonging. Within a short period of opening the Launchpad, we connected and collaborated with others in the vicinity to work on Rolley’s (Scooterson’s first smart scooter model) electronics,” he says.

Georg Steiger of BillEase says: “When it rains, it rains, and the market climate can shift quicker than you expect. As a founder, it’s essential to be agile and adaptable in the face of changes in the market. We learned that it’s crucial to have a strong team around you that can weather the storm and continue to execute your vision even when times are tough.”

This is a good time to improve margins and unit economics

“This year, we observed less aggressive customer acquisition and subsidies, so this is a good time to improve margins and unit economics. At the same time, growth can be cheaper than at peak times. It’s also an excellent time to attract great talent. We made a few key hires over the year to build our team,” Steiger adds.

Heinrich Wendel of iPrice Group says that the sentiment in the market can turn rapidly within a few weeks. It’s essential to read that correctly. When burning hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, every week makes a massive difference to your future run rate.

“Ideally, your company is set up for elasticity, but if not, making the hard decisions as early as possible is better for everyone. Every week extends the company’s run rate by multiple months, and the chance for people to find new jobs quickly increases before layoffs trickle through the economy,” Wendel says.

“Cash is king. The best time for M&A discussions is when business is good and/or financial markets are good. When market conditions are bad, any M&A will discount synergies and purely focus on economic evaluations since everyone needs to focus on their run rate and can squeeze you,” he comments.

According to Ilya Kravtsov of PouchNation and Ringkas, launching a business in more challenging macroeconomic conditions will force every founder to focus on what matters the most, to be true to themselves and listen to their customers and stakeholders more. Funding will never be an issue if the problem you are solving is big enough and will generate an opportunity for many.

“Focusing on true impact will motivate not only the founder, but people who will join your business, clients who will buy your product, and ultimately investors who will invest in you during the downturn,” he says.

Ivan Yeo of Avium says in 2022, two key lessons stood out: first, the importance of risk management during a bull market. De-risking when things get too frothy is vital so one can be more aggressive during the quiet bear market.

“And second, it’s crucial to pursue business fundamentals instead of fundraising metrics. It’s a perspective we’ve been focused on at Avium because startups that chase their next fundraising could eventually be in a precarious position,” he believes.

Jakob Rost of Ayoconnect remarks that the first learning in 2022 is that run rate is the new sexy. With the forecast of global economic growth decreasing from 6 per cent in 2021 to 3.2 per cent in 2022 and 2.7 per cent in 2023, having enough cash in the bank to weather the potential storm in 2022/23 outbids hypergrowth. Focusing more on your core business and customers is also the takeaway I have highlighted in recent times.

“Secondly, keep yourself thin on a manageable number of projects and ideas. More often than not, it might seem exciting to start a new project and shift focus to the latest trend, but getting the right core business had to be the main focus,” he says.

Ayoconnect continues to focus on growth, particularly in building the Open Finance ecosystem in Indonesia. While Open Finance is reasonably well-established in Europe and the US, the industry is still very young in Southeast Asia but is proliferating. In Indonesia, hundreds of millions are embracing new digital services while many still need access to essential financial services like bank accounts.

There is huge potential for Open Finance in the region and many opportunities for the sector to grow further

“As such, there is huge potential for Open Finance in the region and many opportunities for the sector to grow further. We’ve been excited to see the activity in space and to be playing a role in helping move the ecosystem forward in 2023,” he says.

For Julian Artope, Zenyum, key learning is that the best companies outperform the market. “Listed companies in our space took a big hit, and smaller players in our space in the dental category got wiped out during the multiple crises of the last years. One note stuck with me, though: ‘Complaining won’t help. The best managers outperform the market.’ We made this a mantra and started detaching from external circumstances, consistently growing against all odds and celebrating record quarters. As Formula One Driver Ayrton Senna said, ‘You cannot overtake 15 cars in sunny weather… but you can when it’s raining’.”

The best managers outperform the market

“Also, discipline breeds creativity: Going into the year, we read the signs of a challenging environment early and asked our teams to do more with less. The result? We were able to 5x our marketing ROI since the beginning of this year by being more disciplined, operating a more diversified channel mix, and focussing on creatively opening up channels that otherwise might not be available to our category easily,” he adds.

He hopes to make many people smile more in 2023.

Kelvin Lee, Alta (formerly Fundnel), says: “Our key learning this year is to focus on our vision and double down on it. While it is likely that the macroeconomic climate will remain tumultuous for the near future, Alta is building the rails for wealth creation opportunities that had not previously existed for most investors.”

“Never stop building and growing what you believe in,” he adds. “These past few years have been challenging for everyone, and they have been a real test of resilience. I am reminded that some of the most resilient businesses today are the ones that weathered the storm and never stopped pushing forward, even when times were tough.”

According to Kelvin Teo of Funding Societies/Modalku: “Our key learnings in 2022 is that we had to make hard decisions, sometimes unpopular to some stakeholders. However, once you show results, everyone becomes friendly again because people want to be associated with a winning team. And even if you’ve gone with the popular decision and bad results ensued, the people who advocated for the decision may not be there to support you.”

Secondly, we must always stay focused on our north-star vision. “As founders, we face significant pressure from investors. But investors can be fickle. Many business models have received tremendous funding with theses that were either unproven, or we couldn’t understand. Following them could lead us to the wrong or unsuitable path,” he comments.

Lee Yen Ming of PolicyStreet feels that given the dynamic market demand, it was essential to remain agile and pivot our business direction.

“Understanding pain points and refining unique value propositions are also important. In the efforts to innovate and develop products and services that address the demand, PolicyStreet has kept open channels of communication between all stakeholders. After analysing the market and the stakeholders, we’ve found that partnerships with industry giants are critical in creating a comprehensive ecosystem that helps to reduce the protection gap,” he notes.

Manish Bhai of UNO Digital shares: “When you build a business, be ready to give your all and aim for the best, but also keep an open mind knowing that the worst could happen at any given time. Not everything will go as planned, and the business environment can dramatically change without warning.”

“Secondly, I used to believe that strategy is 90 per cent execution, but I realised it is actually 99.5 per cent. This means that you must be prepared to show tangible traction and differentiated speed when producing outcomes for your stakeholders. Effort should always translate to results because that’s what you’ll be measured against,” he says.

Michele Ferrario of StashAway believes that building a company requires resilience, particularly when the environment is very volatile. In such a context, any founding team needs to have high conviction in what it’s building, and the roots of this conviction need to be very deep for every team member to keep making the sacrifices required to build something truly unique.

Cash is always king

“Also, the importance of balance sheet strength is obvious: cash is always king, but it’s even more so when markets become jittery. We have always paid strong attention to building a sustainable business. Despite the changing dynamics and volatility, we continued to remain cautious, especially when it came to marketing expenditure and resources,” Ferrario says.

Mohd Wassem, Easy Eat: “We should not stop experimenting; if something doesn’t produce the intended result, do not hesitate to kill it. This is not a cost but an insurance premium toward building the next great thing and not repeating the same mistake. The key here is learning from this process.”

Experiment and fail fast

“Don’t be over-ambitious: Entrepreneurs should prioritise liquidity overvaluation in the current investment market. If needed, take a marginal hit on valuation and pick up the available funding but do not wait for that highly lucrative offer; it may be too far in the future. No explorer could ever make it to Eldorado,” he says.

Nay Min Thu of iMyanmar Group says the proptech company underwent two unfortunate events in the recent past: the military coup and COVID-19. However, we survive by making some of the harshest decisions one could imagine.

“Fortunately, our strong brand and deep customer relationships helped us recover swiftly. Today, our revenue and profitability are back to pre-pandemic levels. We have managed to remain profitable every year since 2019. Our headcount is growing again,” he says.

“The key lessons we learned are (1) to always remain adaptable in an ever-changing environment and (2) to seize market control with your strengths. One of my favourite mottos is ‘Do whatever you can, with what you have, right where you are. Be adaptable! Don’t go the way of dinosaurs!’” he adds.

“I always take an optimistic view of life. I believe 2023 will be much better with our new business initiatives and expansion plans. The global economy might be going into recession in 2023. But my experience tells me that the best business ideas are born, and the best opportunities are seized when the market goes through a rough patch,” he comments.

The best business ideas are born, and the best opportunities are seized when the market goes through a rough patch.

Naysan Munusamy of MoneyMatch: “Our first learning in 2022 is that this is the right time to be bold and seize all opportunities to scale up. With most Southeast Asian countries opening up and China about to open up soon, there has never been a better time to join in and be part of the solution to empower these Asian businesses to grow.”

Also Read: Traditional banking will morph into wholesale banking in coming decades: MoneyMatch’s Naysan Munusamy

“Another key lesson we learned is to be steadfast in our thinking and processes and not to doubt ourselves. Whether in product innovation or business development, we have found it key to be steady and persistent in our actions amidst the shifting economic conditions and focus on what we do best to scale that up regionally,” Munusamy adds.

Rishi Randhawa, Enjinstarter: “A key learning we made is to have a clear roadmap and meet the milestones. What differentiates a good project from an excellent one is the ability to show that there is a plan and that we have been and are going to deliver. This builds confidence in our community and shows them that investing their time and energy in us is met in kind. The point here is that the mint is just the beginning, and what happens after makes all the difference.”

My hope for 2023 is that brands will continually challenge the status quo and continually evolve and experiment with new tools and methodologies.

Also Read: How Singaporean startup Xctuality helps creators, brands accelerate into metaverse

“We have seen some great examples of how brands and their customers can unite around the vision of decentralisation and how giving them some level of ownership can supercharge the entire ecosystem with vested participation,” he adds.

Rob Schimek, bolttech: “As an enabler of the wider industry, collaborating with our partners has been the key to unlocking new business opportunities while meeting more customer needs.”

The second learning is the importance of financial discipline: Being proactive about expense management has established a solid financial foundation to build a future-ready business.

“The third is about building resilience: We need the right culture to ensure a resilient business. We’ve identified ways to best empower our team to achieve their full potential while adapting to the fast-changing external environment.”

Sanjay Uppal, finbots.ai: “One of the key learnings was that startups should prioritise building a path to profitability and commit to creating value. Additionally, global thought leaders view Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the solution to challenges that have persisted with legacy methodologies across many areas of fintech, including Know Your Customer (KYC), insurance, investments, lending, and credit management. While many startups and technology companies are innovating in this space, most solutions remain in the R&D phase, with only a handful in mainstream business activities. This is changing. 2022 saw regulation start to catch up.”

Victor Lim, Kraver’s Canteen: “Customer loyalty will always be #1, particularly for the F&B industry. Ultimately, marketing is only a temporary solution; if our products don’t generate enough value to sell themselves, it will be impossible to win in the long run.

Additionally, online-only doesn’t work for the retail/F&B industry. Offline strategies must tie into the company’s overall strategy and& direction.

Also Read: Kra-Verse Food Hall where cloud kitchen meets metaverse

“The post-COVID consumer world is an entirely different battlefield, and strategies across all industries worldwide have been disrupted over the last few years. It’s the perfect time for pioneers to pave a new way,” he believes.

Warren Leow, Inmagine Group: “Three learnings I have made in 2022 are the market changes very quickly and that keeping an eye on the future to go with disruption is essential. Secondly, be decisive in making choices, especially in volatile markets. Third, during times of significant change, one has always to show a brave face and move with conviction to inspire, push and motivate the team.”

Warren Woon, Xctuality: “Often, startups and MNCs pursue financial metrics to satisfy shareholder demands. At times, these pursuits may lead to achieving short-term goals but at the expense of fulfilling their long-term vision. Having the right goals and ample resources will enable any company to achieve its aims.”

Climate changes, disease, disasters, conflicts and wars affect how we live and the sourcing and security of much-needed resources. “Suppose we don’t find a way to live harmoniously with one another and develop a symbiotic relationship with Mother Nature. In that case, our future generations will not inherit the blue skies we once knew. No matter our economic background, we can each do our part.”

In 2023, Woon expects greater acceptance and adoption of the Metaverse and Web3. “We also like to see more innovative solutions and government-led initiatives that significantly impact our social and environmental pain points in the next three to five years.”

Xander van der Heijden, UNL: “Vision is essential to building healthy well-oiled organisations: Bringing disruptive innovation to life, especially deep-tech, which doesn’t follow the traditional SaaS startup lifecycle, calls for ambitious rockstar talent and complete alignment between teams. Your company vision is the magnet, glue, oil and filter to an organisational machine that delivers on courageous plans.”

“From investors and partners to clients and top-talent souring, networks are invaluable for the success of startups. A good quality network significantly impacts a startup’s growth at any stage. This is especially true in a down-turn market and our current challenges,” he adds.

Yat Siu, Animoca Brands: “Many of the failures in the decentralised economy as we know it today resulted from too much centralisation. The dishonest and greed-driven behaviour that caused so many problems for crypto during 2022 must be counterbalanced by a desire to drive positive change.”

True decentralisation and transparency would have prevented much of the damage caused by the FTX crisis

A key learning is that true decentralisation and transparency would have prevented much of the damage caused by the FTX crisis; more prevalent self-custody would have secured our digital assets against many unnecessary losses, he adds.

Also Read: Web3 is going to redefine labour in Asia in a big way: Animoca Brands’s Yat Siu

“We need to resist the urge to view influential elites as saviours. The FTX crisis was made much worse because many people viewed its founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his companies as the rescuers of the crypto industry. But the strength of crypto has absolutely nothing to do with reliance on famous personalities, which is an old-fashioned Web2 mode of thinking,” he remarks.

Ying Cong Seah, Glints: “One of our key learnings in 2022 is that unit economics and operating efficiency have become the name of the game. In an era of rising interest rates, investors have many more options and will increasingly demand a higher hurdle rate for their investments. Internally, this means taking a cold hard look at the fundamentals of our business model, reining in more uncertain and good-to-have expenses, and beaming a laser focus on unit economics and business efficiencies.”

Also Read: Non-revenue generating jobs tend to be more affected in the current downturn: Glints CEO

The labour market is a mixed picture: “As a mirror of the wider funding environment, the labour markets, especially for tech talent, are coming off a breathtaking multi-year crunch. We began 2022 catching up on exploding tech salaries but are now ending it with a rise in inbound applications from tech workers hit by layoffs and hiring freezes,” he comments.

Zelia Leong, PraisePal: “The impact of giving personal recognition in work and relationships has been phenomenal. It’s surprising how small acts of appreciation can boost someone’s day or even get them out of a dark place mentally. Be sincere and generous with giving recognition when it’s due.”

A key leaning is that fancy titles might only sometimes mean true substance. “When faced with a new challenge, my first reaction was always to look ‘outwards’ and find someone beyond our company who could help. However, I learned (painfully) that even if someone has a fancy title on LinkedIn, they still need to be capable of rolling up their sleeves to work on actual problem-solving,” Leong adds.

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When it comes to transforming business models and developing innovative new digital products, agility and adaptability play a crucial part in the process.

The Asian region is shifting digitalisation priorities to becoming more resilient against future disruptions and leveraging volatile, unpredictable, complex, and ambiguous market conditions.

According to the IDC-Workday Digital Agility Index Asia Pacific 2022, organisations have accelerated their investments in digital technologies. In fact, by the end of 2022, it is predicted that at least half of the region’s economy will be based on or influenced by digital aspects.

Therefore, while connectivity used to be an enabler for most enterprises, new products are constantly being developed in which connectivity is an intrinsic part of the product itself, which causes portfolios to evolve towards modern digital business.

With modern enterprises increasingly needing to aggregate and transport data, more companies are demanding the flexibility to redesign the connectivity of their locations and operations.

To fully future-proof their digital connectivity features, enterprises will increasingly need the capability to adjust bandwidths, optimise latency, improve security, and reinforce the resilience of their operations following business demands and application requirements.

Furthermore, there is a greater need to create secure and customisable connections to new business partners as and when required. Modern digital business requires strength, resilience, and flexibility in their connectivity setup to win the game.

5G at the core of enterprises’ digital agility

With the advent of accelerated digitalisation to meet the needs of local and global enterprises, society as a whole is becoming increasingly dependent on technical innovations.

Also Read: Growth and changing landscape of 5G and data

Considering that Malaysia is still in its economic recovery stage following the COVID-19 pandemic, the adoption of 5G will play a crucial role in the coming years, as it will be able to support entirely new service offerings, use cases, and business models, and create new revenue streams.

For the telecommunications segment, the rollout of 5G networks will be a game-changer in terms of the amount of data that can be transmitted over a mobile network, as well as the number of devices that can be connected.

Therefore, 5G offers enormous potential for a range of industrial and economic sectors, with application scenarios in agriculture and construction, transport and energy production, and healthcare sectors.

A prominent example is the technological improvements utilised by several manufacturing facilities in Malaysia in the wake of Industry 4.0. Factories are now equipped with intelligent machines that external partners may even operate.

Consequently, adopting intelligent production processes leads to a much greater demand for connectivity reliability within a 5G-enabled factory, company locations, and external networks.

The more an organisation can build automation into its business model, the better chances they have in enabling new opportunities, streamlining operations, and boosting digital agility, making it a key factor towards achieving business success.

More than just mobile broadband

There are many promising use cases for 5G, such as smart cities, autonomous driving, tactile Internet, and remote surgery. However, many of them are envisioned to be realised within the next five to ten years and beyond.

While 5G has been implemented to satisfy future use cases and specific projects in Malaysia are already demonstrating the potential that the technology holds, none have been deployed at scale.

Unlike previous mobile network generations, 5G is not a single technology. It is a set of different standards with various features on multiple layers developed for specific use cases, some of which require additional technologies and infrastructures that form parts of the 5G technology stack.

• Mobile Edge Cloud (MEC): Many industrial 5G applications require very low latency (well below 10 milliseconds), meaning data processing and storage must be physically closer to the machine. These end devices do not have enough resources to process the large amounts of data collected by The MEC, an infrastructure near the base station that provides computing and storage capacities at the “edge” of the network.
• Software-Defined Networking: Software-Defined Networks (SDN) allow networks to be more agile and flexible, decoupling the control level from the underlying data level (often physical circuits) in routers and switches. The entire network of SDN switches can thus be managed via a central controller (physical or virtual), and data packets can be prioritised or blocked as necessary.
• Network Function Virtualisation (NFV): With NFV, expensive and inflexible hardware solutions are replaced with software that runs on standard hardware, such as commercially available servers, using This combination provides more flexible service migration, as well as faster deployments, upgrades, and downgrades. The use of standard hardware also reduces operating costs.
• Service Function Chaining (SFC): This enables the flexible and efficient use of network functions for different applications, facilitating practical use cases that generally require a complete network service consisting of several service functions in a specific order (e.g. first a firewall and then a deep packet inspection). Here, the NFV must be able to keep packets in a predefined order, allowing users to automate the setup of virtual network functions.
• Network Slicing: Network Slicing describes an architectural structure with multiple parallel and independent logical networks on the same physical hardware. Each of these network segments provides a certain Quality-of-Service, based on parameters like latency or bandwidth. The individual segments or slices are mapped to end-to-end communication.

Therefore, SDN and virtualisation are critical to implementing Network Slicing in 5G environments.

Also Read: Top 5G Startups in 2022 Announced

The adoption of 5G on smartphones uses the radio access network (RAN), not edge networking, service virtualisation, and function chaining, which are features that will come with software integration.

One major innovation with 5G is the concept of fixed-line networking integrated into wireless standardisation, enabling end-to-end connectivity. As companies use the standard at scale and productise it, we will see further evolution of the technology stack to meet growing commercial demands.

Winning the interconnection game

As it is, 5G will become ubiquitous on freeways, opening the way for wide-scale autonomous driving; it will be in homes and offices and built into an ever-increasing range of our connected products, leading to greater agility for companies and individuals alike.

However, to make this envisioned future a reality, it will require fine-grained interconnection of networks, not just mobile networks, but also fixed-line networks and satellite networks and connectivity to data centres and clouds.

Malaysia has the potential to become a sub-regional interconnectivity hub for Southeast Asia, as there has been increasing demand for more widely distributed carrier and data centre-neutral interconnection infrastructure in the region.

Being the world’s leading Internet Exchange (IX) operator and home to the global most significant carrier and data centre-neutral interconnection ecosystem, DE-CIX’s scalable interconnection platforms support and enable 5G use cases. At the same time, its enterprise solutions help companies gain the necessary control over their connections to clouds and other networks.

As such, only through the successful interplay of technologies and the widespread deployment of 5G will the new mobile standard bring added value to companies and enhance digital agility.

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Data science and artificial intelligence (DSAI) are altering the digital landscape. We see a rapid transformation across various industries, with machine learning and data science has captured the attention of the world.

As DSAI capabilities become more advanced, organisations need to rethink their operations and equip themselves with the relevant digital acumen.

The ability to turn data into business insights for decision-making while understanding customer intent will allow organisations to stay current and keep pace with technology trends, all of which make organisations more efficient and improve business intelligence.

DSAI has penetrated every part of our daily lives, from using face ID to unlock our phones to the entertainment we consume and our incessant internet searches. It is clear that DSAI will only continue to increase in priority for businesses and governments.

Singapore has recognised the importance of leveraging this technology and has since announced its ten-year US$43.5 billion investment plan for creating a sustainable infrastructure for the future.

DSAI and smart cities

Smart cities have to be intelligent cities. Not only does a smart city refer to the integration of smarter technology into traditional infrastructure, but it also knows how to use the data collected to shape better decisions and provide better services for the inhabitants of the city.

Also Read: How the future of growth through data-driven decisions would start

The key feature of a smart city is one that can intelligently use data, learn from it and work in conjunction with its residents to enhance their lifestyle and improve the livelihoods of the communities.

At Aboitiz Data Innovation (ADI), we operationalise DSAI to develop and deploy new products and solutions aimed at advancing businesses and communities amid a rapidly changing landscape.

Republic Cement, one of the Philippines’ leading building materials companies, teamed up with ADI to create an AI tool that predicts cement quality based on historical data.

With this AI-powered solution, Republic Cement was able to optimise its cement manufacturing process, leading to better-managed resources, increased efficiency of raw materials usage, and, most importantly, effectively reducing carbon emissions in the cement manufacturing process by approximately 35,000 tCO2e annually, all while ensuring consistent product quality.

This innovation showed ADI’s capability to operationalise DSAI into impactful solutions to drive better business and environmental outcomes.

Encouraging citizen activism for a smarter future

The ultimate goal for a smart city is to create an urban area that is rooted in the improvement of quality of life, better services, and sustainability for the people. They are demanding a better life and a safer environment for the future.

And an important part of making smart cities a more tangible and attainable reality is active citizen participation. That is why it is important to allow the next generations to familiarise themselves with the idea of smart cities and encourage them to be part of the progress.

ADI’s Post-Graduate Scholarship Programme, in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board’s Industrial Post-Graduate Programme II (IPP-II), builds a pool of postgraduate talent with critical R&D skills in preparation for roles in the industry.

ADI’s collaboration with NUS also creates opportunities for research in AI-enabled sustainable systems in areas such as urban design, power utilities, manufacturing, and finance sectors. This enables Singaporeans to learn more about DSAI technologies and their positive impacts on communities and beyond.

Forging partnerships between public and private sectors

Building smart cities take planning, and this is where the government plays a crucial role in implementing and defining the steps towards building a supportive infrastructure and ecosystem.

Also Read: Getting smarter with tech: How will smart cities look like 10 years from now? 

According to the 2020/21 Top 50 Smart City Government Report, Singapore ranks at number one in terms of their government’s readiness to develop, facilitate, or track smart city initiatives.

The Smart Nation Programme was also launched in 2014 to drive the national effort to transform Singapore into a Smart Nation.

Moving towards a data-driven future

The exchange of data between sectors is one of the best ways to accelerate technological progress. Both public and private sectors need to work together and understand the role they play in the transformation of a city.

The world of data is complex, and our approach at ADI is to help governments and enterprises rethink the way they harness the power of data through tried and tested frameworks.

We believe that data and AI are valuable resources that can not only help businesses digitise and create new sustainable products and services that bring profit, but they can also make the lives of people better and easier.

With ADI’s advisory solutions, businesses and governments are armed with relevant information and strategic directions to develop and deploy DSAI solutions to enhance the lifestyle and improve the livelihoods of the communities they operate in.

Singapore’s DSAI journey aims to make impactful changes that reap productivity. The vision for a digital-first Singapore is one that effectively transforms the Digital Government, Digital Economy, and Digital Society.

Leaders need to embrace a data-driven mindset, and understanding how to unlock data will be a core skill, one that should be the DNA of creating a smart city. We are continuously progressing towards a time where sustainable data-driven innovations are the key to a smarter and brighter future.

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The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world as we know it in nearly every way. Industries across the globe were forced to learn new ways of operation to accommodate the new way of life that we adopted. Businesses specifically took a hit, finding and putting into motion new ways to communicate, travel, and hold events for employees.

Events needed to change quickly

The shift to digital engagement was rapid, as COVID-19 hit rather quickly in March 2020. Since that point, its integration has been gradual, a shift that we are still seeing in abundance today.

Modes of communication were the first to see this change, as their impact was immediate for most businesses. Email and video conferencing took over the scene, with phone calls, messaging platforms, audio conferencing, and other virtual methods of correspondence becoming imperative to corporate operations.

Also Read: Data-driven financial services, a bigger imperative in a post-pandemic world 

Among these, email was the most popular and common, replacing physical conversations and meetings that would otherwise be held in a physical office.

Business travel is another sector that has forever been changed by the pandemic. Many frequent travellers who often did so for business have claimed that they “will never return to the road” thanks to the ease and accessibility of virtual options.

These numbers remain strong in 2022, with 42 per cent of those interviewed still standing by these claims. Business travel’s share of hotel room revenue is also expected to continue to drop in the coming years.

Event holding and attendance is the sector of business operations that took the biggest hit and saw the most changes. With the emergence of platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams, 70 per cent of physical events were switched to hybrid or virtual in 2020.

In fact, Zoom held more than 45 billion minutes of webinars in 2020, and Teams saw 894 per cent growth in the first three months of the pandemic alone. This exponential growth, however, has not slowed as the pandemic draws to a close.

In 2022, digital events will remain popular. Almost 50 per cent of events are planned to be virtual, and almost 40 per cent are planned to be hybrid.

People crave better virtual experiences

Despite the success and popularity of these platforms, when they are designed poorly, they create challenges. Many employees that use video conferencing regularly experience technical issues, poor communication, and a loss of productivity.

In addition, the amount of eye contact and participant face size on screens during a video chat is unnatural. It has been found that this can create a stressful experience and can lead to a detrimental hyper-aroused state. Seeing oneself in real-time on a screen can be draining and even increase self-criticism.

Despite these challenges of interacting digitally, people still prefer attending events online. Of people who attend ten or more events every year, studies show that 46 per cent attended online events, and only 13 per cent attended physical events. From a business perspective, they need virtual programming for a number of reasons.

Holding events online instead of in person saves time, as employees don’t need to travel and physically gather at a set location. Also, it reduces costs as there are fewer expenses due to travel, cutting some existing travel costs by 30 per cent.

Also Read: The 5 pillars of digital transformation that meet business objectives efficiently

Virtual events also can increase productivity by allowing more time to be allocated to other important tasks. Finally, these platforms increase employee engagement and focus as they are less likely to multitask while on videos compared to phone calls.

The rise of hybrid events

Hybrid events have been found to be the best way to create a more engaging and exciting corporate event. Hybrid programming can be defined as a separate experience in which two audiences are connected by the content they’re accessing.

Studies show that 72 per cent of virtual event attendees believe that they will get more value from attending a hybrid event than a physical event. With the goal in mind to create the best experience for every audience, event planners use gamification and metaverse technology to ensure this outcome.

These tools can boost engagement and curiosity in the topic at hand, using new and revolutionary technology to foster a better environment for all involved.

As the height of the pandemic draws to a close, it is clear that physical events are not going away. However, businesses can reach new and greater audiences than ever before through hybrid and virtual events on digital campuses.

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The pandemic is entering its third year, and most businesses in Asia-Pacific are moving towards adopting office space plans that acknowledge the current condition.

We have witnessed businesses being compelled to restructure their operations, adapt their staff to flexible working arrangements, and develop greater agility to react more rapidly to changes in the market and consumer demand.

The need for flexible offices is predicted to increase sharply. Businesses have to think very carefully about ensuring the productivity of the employees and having a physical office to cater to the business needs and growth.

Increased use of flexible office space in the future

The global pandemic has highlighted the need for businesses to be agile. Therefore, the demand for flexible office space, such as coworking spaces, will increase in the upcoming years, according to the CBRE Spring 2022 Asia Pacific Occupier Survey (2022).

By 2024, survey participants predict that flexible space will make up roughly 17 per cent of all real estate portfolios, up from the present level of seven per cent. The statistics show that by the next two years, around 50 per cent of companies will benefit from flexible offices, while only 18 per cent of companies will not be using them.

Flexible office space providers must continuously meet their client’s requirements by making broader choices of flexible office space available, ranging from on-demand event space to customisable private offices.

Also Read: What the entrepreneur community says about King Charles III’s visit to WORQ

According to CBRE, tech companies would still be the primary user of flexible offices, with business services, banking, retail, and life sciences sectors all expected to use flexible offices in a far higher amount than in the past.

Flex space is now commonly used by businesses to offer temporary solutions to a scattered workforce, providing on-demand meeting and collaboration space for staff and increasing staff location alternatives.

Post-pandemic situation: 76 per cent of employees prefer the hybrid working model

Although capital expenditure (CapEx) reductions continue to be a major factor driving demand for flexible space, the remote working arrangement is the main motivator.

Surveying 150 companies, CBRE (2022) found that 60 per cent of respondents chose hybrid working, which entails staff members dividing their time between working from the office and working from home.

However, about half of employers who impose hybrid working prefer that their employees spend most of their time at work, with the remaining employers expecting an equal balance.

With the findings, WORQ Coworking Space, which currently has more than 10,000 community members, found that 76 per cent of these members prefer a hybrid working arrangement, while 51 per cent of companies impose a hybrid working policy.

In total, 1,183 out of 1,563 people come to WORQ for the hybrid work model, whereas 240 companies from 469 have their employees in such an arrangement.

Methodology

The data is gathered from OfficeRnD to see the total days 1,563 members and 469 companies come to WORQ in two weeks from January to September 2022. Then, the data is filtered to the frequency of coming to the office equals four days or less, and this population is labelled as a hybrid worker.

Flexibility: The key to overcoming modern workplace challenges

With workers demanding hybrid working arrangements, things will change when more companies return to work in the office. Businesses must embrace flexible working as the new normal by improving workplace flexibility.

Also Read: With a looming recession, is office space really a wise investment?

CBRE data (2022) shows that many businesses have transitioned to hot-desking and other flexible seating arrangements and this process has sped up since 2020. Just 28 per cent of businesses still use fixed seating arrangements as of 2022, far less than the 58 per cent of businesses that did so before the pandemic. This number will decrease sharply to 12 per cent in the next two years. 

Companies are expressing a positive take on investing in long-term office as the return to the workplace continues. Over the next three years, almost 47 per cent of respondents in the CBRE survey want to expand the size of their real estate portfolios.

Only 23 per cent of respondents said they planned to reduce the size of their long-term real estate assets, down significantly from 46 per cent in 2020 due to the adoption of hybrid working in many organisations.

While these businesses reduce the size of their offices, many other businesses take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade to better locations and higher-quality buildings.

WORQ: A flexible office provider supporting hybrid workers

With all the flexibility it can offer, utilising coworking space is the most effective strategy for businesses to tackle future workplace challenges. Through Enterprise Solutions, WORQ can build a flexible office for businesses to scale up in the future and to design and customise the workspace the way they want it to be.

WORQ is also opening its fifth outlet in KL Sentral. The office is certified with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) & Green Building Index (GBI), catering to the demand for green buildings without paying the green premium.

In the end, coworking space is the solution to ease the transition to hybrid working and support the return to work. The future of work is here; it is hybrid and uses flexible offices.

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Oyo lays off 600 people amid restructuring plans
The SoftBank-backed hotel chain had 3,700 employees before the firing; The company has cut down operations in China and the US and is now focusing on India, Southeast Asia, and Europe.

CVC Capital explores sale, growth options for Razer
The development comes less than a year after CVC bought Razer, co-founded by Min-Liang Tan and the late Robert Krakoff in California and Singapore in a US$3.2B deal.

SG’s AirCarbon exchange looks to raise US$50M Series B
The round has already picked the interest of 17 parties, including banks and financial institutions; The carbon exchange’s existing backers include Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Co. and Deautsche Borse.

A-Labs launches US$10M Web3 fund in Philippines
Archipelago Labs is backed by partners from the PDAX, Oak Drive Ventures, and Magellan Digital Investment Group; Next year, the startup accelerator will run the first cohort for its Archipelago Labs Accelerator Block.

Singapore’s Carousell lays off 110 employees
Quek Siu Rui, CEO of mobile classifieds unicorn, says that Carousell saw the signs of high inflation, geopolitical risks and supply chain disruption as early as March this year.

Philippine digibank Tonik to acquire B2B fintech firm TendoPay
TendoPay helps companies provide payroll-enabled financial solutions to employees; Its services include BNPL, emergency cash loans, personal finance tools, virtual cards, prepaid insurance cards, and reward programmes.

Tesla teases Thailand entry this month
On its LinkedIn page, the company posted a teaser for the launch only available to users in the country; On its LinkedIn page, the company posted a teaser for the launch only available to users in the country.

Carbon tech startup Fairatmos lands US$4.5M seed capital
The investors are Go-Ventures, Kreasi Terbarukan, Vertex SEA and India; Fairatmos helps project developers design carbon sequestration projects and connect with firms and individuals seeking to buy or finance carbon credits to reach their net-zero goals.

Features
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GapMaps takes the guesswork out of your location planning decisions
GapMaps provides accurate and up-to-date information about locations, which retailers can use while expanding their network or optimising existing stores.

Preference for green jobs is the “most exciting” climate tech development: Lightspeed
While this volume of talent is still too low to have a transformative impact by itself, Lightspeed views this trend as “encouraging”.

Authored
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Serving up the future: How robots are revolutionising the F&B industry
By embracing the support of technology to augment the human resources we have, the F&B industry can grow by leaps and bounds.

A new era of events: How the pandemic created a new norm
As the height of the pandemic draws to a close, businesses can reach new and greater audiences than ever before through hybrid and virtual events.

Web3
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Indonesia central bank says digital rupiah currency can be used in metaverse
Bank Indonesia launched the design for the digital rupiah last week; The currency will use a tech platform that will be compatible with other central banks’ digital currencies.

9 simple ways to cut down on your crypto taxes
This article sheds light on some of the smartest options to help you save more on your crypto taxes and lessen your liability.

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At its core, embedded finance combines two worlds: financial services and digital. Having long been kept apart, their integration opens up vast opportunities for innovation that bring major practical advantages.

Embedded finance allows business models and their related consumer experiences to operate more effectively, for example, by making working capital more efficient or making payments easier.

Embedded finance promises value for customers, embedders, financial institutions, and the larger addressable market.

Let me break it down a little:

• Customers

There is huge value for SMEs when they can get better access to finance thanks to the rich data already available on the systems they already use, such as accounting packages or e-commerce platforms. The same opportunity exists for underserved consumers: combining applications that deal with a broader aspect of their lives (such as their mobile phone contract) with new financial services makes these consumers economically viable to serve with more than just basic financial services.

• Embedders (those who embed finance into software or platforms)

Innovators who embed financial services into their products benefit in three main ways. Firstly, they have the opportunity to monetise financial transactions that now take place on their platform. Secondly, by enriching their product with new supercharged features, they attract new customers and engage them more deeply. Thirdly, the result is greater retention and value over the customer’s lifetime.

• Financial institutions

Embedded finance providers act as a force multiplier for the distribution and consumption of financial services offered by banks. If embedded finance providers enable more businesses, for example, to put more debit cards in people’s hands, the bank that provides the underlying instruments also stands to gain.

Also Read: MiRXES launches SEA first Translator Program with Plug and Play

The market potential is large and expanding. Bain & Company expect the US market for platforms and enablers to more than double to US$51 billion by 2026 (in total revenue across payments, lending, banking, and cards from 2021). The transaction value of embedded finance also will surge from US$2.6 trillion to US$7 trillion across the same time scale. 

Next, let’s assess where we are now.

Current embedded finance climate

Until recently, state of the art for building Embedded Finance solutions was to use APIs (programming interfaces) provided by banks for, say, creating accounts or issuing cards – this approach is called Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS).

For most innovators, however, BaaS is a heavy lift: implementation times are long, and it requires a hefty investment. 

It’s only going to get more complex as regulators increasingly scrutinise the BaaS model.  Suddenly it seems that regulators are indeed taking a look. 

Concerns were raised by the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to EML Payments, in November 2022 – resulting in EML Payments temporarily ceasing to onboard new customers.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the US recently hinted more regulation is forthcoming to the BaaS space there too.  The public filing of an agreement between the OCC and Blue Ridge Bank highlights a firm example of regulators taking action on BaaS models by a specific bank.

While not great news for Blue Ridge, it provides an example map for other fintech and banks in the market and how they can keep on the right side of regulation. Thus, improving and adding additional protection for the end user.

This is why a radically new approach is needed

What if embedding financial services was no more complex for innovators than integrating third-party software?  And what if banks had a bulletproof answer to their regulators’ concerns with BaaS.

Also Read: ‘DTC, embedded insurance models have big potential in SEA’: Eurazeo’s Albert Shyy

To achieve this, at Weavr we are pioneering a different approach to BaaS, which we call ‘plug and play’ because all the technical, regulatory and operational complexity related to the embedded financial services are included ‘in the box’ with the innovator only having to take on peripheral responsibilities.  As importantly, all the responsibilities that the bank needs to be taking are also ‘in the box’.  

Unpacking what’s in the box

All the facilities, responsibilities and processes that the bank would typically cater for when delivering its own financial products are provided for in a configurable way.  This includes:

• Customer on-boarding: customer ID verification, screening and risk assessment
• Financial data security tools for innovators to operate within  data security standards such as PCI-DSS
• Components to support the regulatory requirements for strong customer authentication, for instance, through biometrics
• Logging of customer acceptance of terms and fees, as well as of any material customer financial activity
• Connection to  transactional systems and financial systems of record (e.g. ledgers)
• Orchestration across multiple financial institutions, financial tech vendors and service providers

Few, if any, innovators that want to take advantage of embedded finance have the appetite to grapple with the above responsibilities. Still, absolving innovators from most of these burdens has to be accompanied by sufficient freedom for creativity and creating seamless customer experiences.

At the same time, the bank (and perhaps more importantly, the regulator) is assured that these sensitive matters are being done to its standards and not outsourced to the innovator who typically neither wants nor can effectively take them on.

Five key principles that plug-and-play finance solutions should adhere

In summary, if we had to propose a ‘manifesto’ for plug-and-play finance, it would include these principles:

• Software-only responsibility: Plug-and-play finance solutions should, wherever possible, be no more onerous to implement and run than any other software package.  
• Abstraction from financial protocols: Plug-and-pllay finance solutions should abstract away details of specific technical protocols associated with (often legacy) financial technology and expose functionality in high-level intentional terms (what, rather than how), such as onboarding a customer, issuing a card, enabling a transfer of funds, while aggregating and encapsulating the many fine-grained sequences of steps, interactions and exchanges of data to achieve them.
• Contextual adaptation: functionality and processes offered by Plug-and-play finance solutions – whether related to risk management, compliance oversight, end-customer charges, approval workflows, etc. – should not be one-size-fits-all. They should be adaptable to the deployment context. 
• Maximum allowed access to financial data and controls: Plug-and-play finance solutions should provide maximum visibility over financial data and maximum control over financial actions as allowed for by (a) data security, end-customer privacy and financial regulation, (b) by the ability for the end-customer to effectively delegate and withdraw access, and (c) the risk of inadvertent or malicious action by the innovator or third-parties to the detriment of the end-customer. 
• Minimum constraints over non-financial data and controls: Plug-and-play finance solutions should leave it open as far as possible for the innovator to design any aspect of the solution that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the financial solution or bring the innovator into the scope of financial regulation.

The plug-and-play approach changes everything, unleashing the power of embedded finance across a multitude of industries.

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In this article, I’ll be sharing a self-assessment of my progress as an entrepreneur. A quick introduction so we all have some context. I’m Wen, Founder and CEO of SushiVid.com, an influencer marketing marketplace turned tech-enabled influencer marketing agency.

Incorporated in 2015 in Malaysia, we have over 7,000 influencers whom we have paid via our platform and have generated an average of US$1 million in billing annually for the past three years. I am not a high-growth startup Founder. I did not raise a whole lot of VC money, but I’m sure many could identify with my journey and struggles just the same. 

The show must go on

One common theme I’ve been getting, a question that’s been going around amongst my peers (who are also decade-long Founders), is succession planning.

I never gave it much thought until this year. It’s a monumental task and a decision that many entrepreneurs/ leaders miss when they first take on the CEO role. How to wash one’s hands off or pass the baton on?

Also Read: From hobby to startup: Here’s my story as IKIGUIDE’s Co-Founder

The show must go on, as one says. A successful business must continue to thrive without us founders, and the quest to find a successor is probably one of the biggest challenges we all have to face. I have been contemplating this a lot this year.

As I am nearing my 40s, the thought of starting a family pops up. I may want to at some point, who knows? The idea of managing both a family and a company is petrifying. Thanks to the quick exits that we all once aspired for (Joel Neoh exited Groupsmore in less than 12 months) or foolishly thought we could achieve.

To all aspiring entrepreneurs out there, realistically, the grind is at least a decade long. I guess I should’ve thought about this more seven years ago. But again, overthinking it may have deterred me from starting SushiVid.

Seven years is a long time, at least for me. If I could attribute my persistence to something, it must be my masochistic love for a good challenge. It dawned on me that the longer we linger in our entrepreneurship path, the more complicated the challenges become, and that gets me going.

As entrepreneurs, we have got to love changes but, at the same time, also be wise to stop ourselves from working on every new shiny idea that comes our way. I learned that the hard way. In our journey in SushiVid, I also started GoShareLah, ConfirmPlusChop, SushiVid LIVE and IGLinks.io.

All with circa 15 manpower at any point in time. While I still believe all our MVPs were great, I do not have the manpower or personal capacity to explore them all. If only I could tap the undo button, erase those experiments and focus on one instead.   

The right kind of detox

In 2020 and 2021, we slowed down our experiments due to the pandemic, but the work was equally fun because the challenges we faced were all distinct, new and difficult. I am so thankful for the Alibaba eFounders programme.

Thankfully right before the pandemic, they shared with us their experience navigating SARS, and that laid a path or two for me to follow. I had to plan pay cuts, manage remote working and handle resignations while our business was soaring all at the same time.

The pandemic has also enabled me to run a detox around the office. We were forced to do things very economically. Although it was an uphill climb at first, this austerity drive brought out our creativity and resourcefulness. It was one of the best exercises we have ever done in SushiVid.

A founder’s problems can come in all shapes and sizes

2022, now that the pandemic stress is almost over, one would think I could finally catch a break, but no. Just when I thought I could finally enjoy some peacetime managerial work, I was slapped with the biggest betrayal I’ve ever had to endure in my working lifetime. We caught our employee(s) committing a Criminal Breach of Trust (CBT). So you see, a founder’s problems can come in all shapes and sizes.

This CBT issue we are facing is not only a problem that we face as a company or industry, I believe it is a model-wide problem for all gig economy model startups. In the gig economy model, there are many suppliers and many buyers. Gig-economy platforms like ours are the platform in between that connects the suppliers to the buyers.

Ideally, everything should be handled via our platform, suppliers should be randomised or, at best, listed based on a review or prioritised listing the algorithm controls that. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Things could be fair and efficient, but it isn’t happening this way at the moment. I’d say for most gig economy models.

Also Read: Dedoco: A founder’s journey to building next-gen digital trust technology

Suppliers and customers are simply not ready for an entirely self-serve platform, and very often, they would appreciate recommendations because it’s just much easier. Consequently, relationships are built, and illicit secret side deals are made quickly. Such deals are essentially what make up the criminal breaches of trust.  

Navigating this has been difficult for me. We, as the leaders of the company, can’t oversee every conversation. It is impossible to control greed or to expect everyone to behave with the same level of integrity as we do.

We want to believe in the best and trust our employees. It would be impossible for us to lead a company out of fear or with a sense of distrust, but also, at the same time, we have to be slightly cautious. This is yet another balancing game that we need to play as a business. Do we become too rigid and risk losing clients? Or do we remain convenient and easy to work with but risk getting taken advantage of?

Sadly, I believe that this is the start of where layers of approvals get implemented in a startup, and we become the old dogs of the game waiting to be disrupted. Seven years is about right. So we got to pick up and self-disrupt before we get disrupted!  

Final thoughts

On the brighter side, as an ever-evolving founder, I have also become more mature in business relationships. To be fair, the first few years, every time a player came, we’d treat each other with hostility.

But recently, influencer marketing has become a vibrant industry, and with it, a lot more players and contributors in the ecosystem. I, too, have softened my approach to other industry players. I guess I’ve grown up? Better to join forces than to try to beat each other up.

We’ve collaborated with players across borders, we’re in talks with players locally to form some kind of an association, and it’s become much more constructive and friendly as compared to the hostility I faced and contributed to in the earlier years. 

Overall, I love the 37-year-old me and every bit of this entrepreneurship journey. I am positive about the industry and the outlook of the market. I am excited and look forward to the new year. 2023 will be another year with many opportunities for tremendous growth and progress. I believe we Malaysians (post-GE-15) are off to a good start!

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From public health scares to ongoing conflict and geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions are becoming more frequent.

Past lockdowns in key port cities, military conflicts, and trade disputes slowed the flow of raw materials to manufacturing hubs and finished goods to consumer markets, forcing companies to reconfigure their supply and production networks. More companies are following in response to ongoing conflict-related shortages.

Aside from strategies such as near sourcing production and regionalising supply chains, companies are also investing in digital solutions to address disruptions. These include tools that enable complete supply chain visibility for decision-makers, the utilisation of data and analytics for better planning, and predictive models to identify future disruptions.

But while enterprises are progressing in these fields, the trade finance sector continues to lag behind other components of the supply chain network.

Also Read: Can blockchain function as a medium for social good and digital philanthropy?

Financial institutions’ processes are still paper-intensive and highly manual, slowing down the entire supply chain and generating more operational costs for all parties involved while remaining vulnerable to fraud.

Traditional processes are holding the trade finance sector back

Trade finance has been a paper- and labour-intensive sector throughout its long history. But with the astronomical growth in supply chain networks’ complexity, as well as the sheer volume of goods being shipped, the highly-traditional trade finance system is hindering business efficiency, agility and scalability.

With its preponderance of manual processes and overreliance on physical documents, supply chains are littered with process inefficiencies, susceptibility to fraud, and unnecessary increases in costs.

Large amounts of physical documentation, such as product, shipping, and transaction details, are exchanged through multiple parties. Fairly straightforward processes can take up to months to complete.

Meanwhile, this is all against a backdrop of more stringent due diligence requirements such as know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML). These regulations are precisely in response to the lack of transparency that legacy processes exacerbate.

And failure to comply will have serious consequences on businesses’ ability to continue driving Asia Pacific’s economic growth. According to the Asia Development Bank (ADB), the region has the highest rejection rate of trade finance proposals at 34 per cent.

Little wonder, as fraud, especially duplicate trade financing, continues to be a thorn in the side of trade finance. In one of the most prominent cases in recent history, Singapore oil trading company Hin Leong led to US$3.85 billion in losses for 23 banks.

While this type of fraud, which involves financing a single invoice multiple times, is not new and has occurred in the industry as far back as decades ago, institutions are unable to make significant progress against it.

This is a result of the lack of visibility and transparency between stakeholders due to the difficulty in sharing critical data in a timely fashion. In turn, a collaboration between stakeholders takes a blow and opportunities for malpractice become commonplace.

Blockchain tech makes processes faster, cost-efficient, and transparent

When trade finance is done on a decentralised blockchain, all transactions are recorded in a secure database which is accessible to all parties to the trade. This addresses the three major challenges facing trade finance transactions: inefficiencies stemming from the use of large quantities

of physical documents, increased costs of complying with regulatory requirements, and the lack of total visibility, which makes the system vulnerable to fraud.

Conducting transactions through a decentralised blockchain entails digitalising the documentation created, exchanged, and processed by the various stakeholders in a supply chain.

Transmitting the electronic versions of these documents through the blockchain reduces transaction times from months to hours because all involved parties have access to it. The costs associated with such paper-intensive processes are also reduced.

Also Read: ‘Trade & supply chain sector is set to witness unprecedented blockchain adoption’: #dltledgers

In addition, stakeholders with access to the blockchain have complete visibility over the whole process, significantly reducing the risk of duplicate trade financing. At the same time, parties are assured of the integrity of their data due to the unprecedented security of digital ledger technology.

Successful blockchain adoption is a network-wide effort

For the utilisation of blockchain technology in trade finance to be successful, all parties must buy into it. If just one of the multiple parties in a cross-border trade scenario is not part of the decentralised blockchain, other parties will not be able to have full visibility on all transactions, and confidence in the latter’s integrity against fraud would not be possible.

Improvements in transaction speed and lowered operational costs would not reach their full potential as well. There would still be a need for physical documentation in certain links in the whole supply chain, as well as slower processes.

Financial institutions and other large organisations must take the lead with blockchain adoption. They can be the drivers of change in trade finance, influencing other stakeholders to become more efficient via improved transparency and collaboration.

In addition, this can also fine-tune legislation and regulatory mechanisms to enable the pivot towards blockchain technology in the overall supply chain process.

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Airwallex is pleased to announce that it has launched multi-currency physical corporate cards in Singapore, available for all Singapore-based businesses. Airwallex’s physical cards complement its existing suite of virtual and digital wallet-supported corporate cards released in Singapore earlier in May this year.

With its virtual financial products, customers enjoy various benefits. For instance, Singapore-based companies can instantly create and issue free virtual multi-currency debit cards to make transactions with vendors and online third parties, paying in over 140 different currencies at favourable exchange rates with zero international transaction fees. Moreover, the card creation process is fast, convenient, and secure, enabling companies to conduct business globally with ease and confidence.

To empower businesses of all sizes to accept payments, move money internationally, and simplify their financial operations all in one single platform, Airwallex continues to enhance its card functionality by enabling the use of physical cards in Singapore. With this product, customers using Airwallex cards to pay for business flights and hotels can now extend that use and pay for other travel expenses while overseas, especially for Point of Sales (POS) transactions.

Local businesses can create and issue up to 50 free Airwallex physical and virtual corporate cards as needed at the touch of a button. They can entrust and empower employees to spend in multiple currencies without transaction fees and track expenses in the web app. Consequently, businesses will be further empowered when making everyday financial transaction decisions. 

Airwallex’s partnership with Agoda for travel promotion

Along with launching its physical cards, Airwallex has partnered with Agoda to offer up to 7+1% cashback for applicable hotel bookings made on the travel platform. Specifically, Singapore-based businesses with valid Airwallex employee cards can enjoy a 7% discount on eligible accommodation transactions and 1% cash back for any transactions made on Agoda. The 7% discount will be applied automatically during booking on Airwallex’s affiliate site on Agoda. The additional 1% cashback will be credited to the customer’s Airwallex account, following the promotional cashback schedule.

Airwallex is also extending this 1% cashback on all other local and international transactions without limit.

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The partnership is timely as business travel has picked up, with most countries easing their COVID-19 travel restrictions and businesses resuming their operation under the new normal. A recent Business Travel Recovery Poll by the Global Business Travel Association expects business travel to continue its recovery, with a strong outlook set for 2023. Even as businesses continue to embrace new ways of working, with hybrid or remote work policies, almost three-quarters of all respondents do not expect their employees’ business trips to be impacted.

According to Deloitte, the opportunity to conduct sales meetings, strengthen client relationships, and network at conferences in person was listed as being among the top purposes for the comeback of business travel.

Additionally, a key finding from a separate study — the 2023 Global Business Travel Forecast by CWT – revealed that business travellers can expect to see price increases for airfares (8.4%) and hotel rates (8.2%) in 2023. Therefore, by using Airwallex’s corporate cards to book business travel accommodations on Agoda, companies can maximise cost savings even as employees travel for work.

Empowering businesses to grow across borders

Airwallex was founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 2015 by engineering-banking friends Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, and Xijing Dai to empower businesses of all sizes to accept payments, move money globally, and simplify their financial operations, all in one single platform. Its purpose is to connect entrepreneurs, business builders, makers and creators with opportunities in every corner of the world. 

The company has a global footprint across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America, with over 1,300 employees across 19 global locations. Airwallex also recently raised US$100 million in its Series E2 financing round, increasing its total funding to over US$900 million.

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Airwallex made its official debut in Singapore in January 2022 after securing a licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2021. Accordingly, Singapore businesses can start experiencing Airwallex’s offerings, including global account issuance, multi-currency wallets, and online payment acceptance, among others.

Airwallex’s strong growth in Singapore

The launch of Airwallex’s physical corporate cards and partnership with Agoda is another step towards a full rollout of Airwallex’s suite of money movement offerings in Singapore. Since its expansion into the Singaporean market, the company has engaged directly with businesses at trade shows and events like the Singapore Fintech Festival, Singapore Business Show, and Accounting & Finance Show to share how Airwallex can support and empower them. 

Airwallex has also partnered with Google Ads and EasyParcel on campaigns to share how its product suite can support the business community in Singapore. Furthermore, Airwallex recently announced its collaboration with buy now pay later (BNPL) provider Atome to allow its merchants to offer BNPL as a payment option to shoppers across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

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The Airwallex x Agoda travel promotion deal has gone live and will be available until 31 Dec 2023. Hence, to take advantage of the opportunity, businesses are encouraged to sign up with Airwallex to receive either the virtual corporate card or the newly launched physical cards and enjoy all the perks when booking with Agoda. The earlier businesses take advantage of this promotion, the more cost savings they can enjoy! 

Sign up for the offer here.

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

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The post Airwallex: making business transactions easier than ever with physical cards launch appeared first on e27.