Word of a potential Grab-gojek merger has commanded attention all over Southeast Asia. While such a merger could bring a myriad of opportunities in fintech and the digital space, a unification of the two Southeast Asian tech stars also raised fears of a monopoly in the ride-hailing, food delivery and payments industry.

The proposed marriage between the two has also stirred dissent amongst drivers all over Indonesia, with motorbike driver unions threatening to spark nationwide protests in a wager to protect their livelihoods. 

However, talks of a merger between Grab and gojek have reached an impasse with management failing to reach a consensus on firm ownership. Instead, gojek has begun on another trajectory, as they advance on merger talks with one of Indonesia’s top e-commerce firms Tokopedia.

How then will a successful gojek-Tokopedia merger impact the Southeast Asian e-commerce space, particularly in Indonesia? And in what ways would the consequences of such a merger differ from that of a Grab-gojek marriage? 

Indonesian-based gojek and Tokopedia combined would amass a valuation of at least US$18 billion. With an active user base of 29 million and 100 million respectively, both gojek and Tokopedia would be able to tap on the other’s user network, appealing to an already loyal customer base.

As both entities possess strongholds in the Indonesian market, a merger would propel the firm to dominate Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest-growing internet economy, vying with contenders Grab, Sea Group’s Shopee and Lazada.

Also Read: Grab-gojek or Tokopedia-gojek: which merger will make better business sense?

Previously, the possibility of a Grab-gojek merger raised apprehension of a potential decline in competition in the ride-sharing and food delivery scene in Southeast Asia, areas where both brands have emerged as market leaders.

On the other hand, a gojek-Tokopedia union would likely proceed more amicably with less backlash from the masses as the anti-competitive effects in any one vertical would be less profound. Furthermore, there is a lower tendency for anti-competitive laws to be flouted in a gojek-Tokopedia merger in contrast to Grab-gojek, thus reducing the possibility of objections from authorities. 

Additionally, a join of hands between gojek and Tokopedia could raise red flags for Grab who is trying to establish its presence in Indonesia. Both Grab and Gojek have been investing heavily in their payments arm, shifting the focus of the business from ride-hailing to digital banking.

In December 2020, Gojek poured US160 million into Indonesian bank PT Bank Jago, signalling its intent to strengthen its financial services sector with GoPay at its forefront. Given that Indonesia comes in fourth for the largest unbanked population, it is no surprise that Grab is also eyeing a piece of the pie.

Yet, as merger talks fall through, Grab may have lost out on a golden opportunity to bolster its presence in Indonesia and more so, with a strengthened Gojek. 

Nonetheless, it is unlikely that Grab will sit back. A gojek-Tokopedia merger may spur an alliance between Grab-backed digital wallet OVO and Ant-backed Dana, as rumoured in June last year. This could signal a heated competition between gojek’s GoPay and a Grab-backed Ovo-Dana in an attempt to capture a greater share of the Indonesian e-wallet market, where digital payments are trending. However, Grab would need to take quick action to compete with gojek’s GoPay, who is already a preferred digital wallet amongst locals. 

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: Tokopedia, gojek on the verge of a US$18B merger; GoBear ceases ops

We should not forget that tech companies such as gojek, Tokopedia and Grab operate in digital markets where network effects are accentuated as opposed to conventional markets. It would be nearly impossible to overthrow market leaders in these fields, with high switching costs and information asymmetries that give the incumbent a competitive edge.

With the right leadership and a smooth collaboration between the two entities, the merged firm carries great potential to rise to the title of Indonesian internet powerhouse. If Grab fails to keep up, a strong defence from gojek-Tokopedia may deny Grab from successfully setting up a base in Indonesia.

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The Halal meat scandal in Malaysia that was uncovered last month has outraged the Muslims in the country. A national newspaper has uncovered that not only was the beef was falsely labeled as Halal, but they might not even be beef at all.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; this food fraud is happening globally, but exposed first in Malaysia. Just wait a few days or weeks, more will be exposed around the world.

Imported fake beef

Malaysia, as well as other Muslim countries around the world, typically import their meat supply from abroad. Malaysia’s Islamic Development Department provides Halal accreditation to meat processing plants in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and the United States.

The fake Halal meat was instead imported from countries such as Colombia, China and Ukraine. Then it was packaged with a fake halal logo. 

However, the issue is beyond just Halal certification; it is outright fraud. Horse or kangaroo meat, or just tainted poor quality, or even diseased beef has been repackaged as quality meat products with Halal logo.

Once the fake Halal meat arrives at ports in Malaysia, the shipment would bypass inspection courtesy of corrupt officials at the ports collaborating with smugglers.

They would then relabel the meat as Halal using existing brands that have Halal certification and distribute them together with authentic brands. Simply put, it is just like buying a counterfeit designer brand.

The only difference is with counterfeit designer brands the only thing that at stake is the buyer’s ego. In Halal food, scandal buyers have no idea the meat is not halal, unsafe, and are putting their health at risk. It is suggested that the Halal food fraud has been going on for 40 years.  

Technology solutions to combat food fraud

The issue of food fraud is not new, globally. Countries such as China and the US have faced this issue before.

Food fraud becomes possible as the gap from farm to fork grows, meaning that as we no longer buy food directly from farmers, there are now more players involved in the food supply chain.

It is estimated that there are at least six players involved in the food supply chain before we can consume our food. These are the farmers, food production, food processing and packaging, storage, wholesale distribution, and finally the supermarkets.

There is now a technology that can combat food fraud is blockchain, which is also the technology behind bitcoins.

Also read: Foodtech in Singapore through the eyes of startups

Blockchain is essentially decentralised ledgers distributed across many parties, recording every single transaction which is secured with cryptography technology. This means that no hacker can change the data, as the data are not stored by one centralised system but across multiple parties.

By using blockchain technology, the food industry can now ensure that the food sold is traceable back to the source. Food fraud typically involves mislabeling or using fake labels, as in the case of the Malaysian Halal meat scandal.

Global startups using blockchain technology for Halal marketplaces

The real problem is until now, there is no affordable solution that can trace our food from farm to fork. In the past, because of traceability, labour conditions have improved and human trafficking has taken a nosedive.

Big brands had to face consumer backlash when their product was made by people under extremely poor working conditions. It is all because somebody was able to trace where the product came from. Today, there is a technology that can detect whether a package of food back to its origins in an instant.

OneAgrix, a global startup, appears to have a solution to mitigate the problem of food fraud significantly if not eradicate it totally. They provide a B2B cross-border marketplace platform for Halal food, agricultural and nutraceutical products using blockchain technology and food DNA tracing.

OneAgrix has the technology to ensure transparency, traceability and trust in the food supply chain. The CEO and founder Diana Sabrain has been advocating food traceability and Halal authenticity well before the Malaysia meat scandal was exposed. The company started its operations in 2018.

According to OneAgrix’s CEO, Diana Sabrain, “The agri-food sector is one of the last sectors to use advanced technology.”

OneAgrix works with a number of Halal certification bodies across the world to ensure the foods’ Halal authenticity as well as laboratories to ensure that the products are not tainted with non-Halal content, such as pork or alcohol.

To ensure the company’s success, OneAgrix founders also waited for the right time to launch their startup. Sabrain said in an interview with Halalop earlier that three years ago, technology wasn’t available like it is now. So, they did not go into the market immediately, but worked quietly in the background to build the platform by making contacts and looking into which technologies to integrate.

The global Halal food is estimated to be worth US$1.17 trillion of spending by 1.9 billion Muslims in 2019, according to the Dinar Standard’s report on the State of the Global Islamic Economy.

If anything is to be learned from this scandal on a national level, it is that the time is now ripe for Malaysia to use blockchain in its food supply chain, especially for the Halal food sector. If not, the trust issue will remain against the Halal Malaysia certification and its impact on Malaysia US$9 billion worth of Halal trade exports.

The market is big enough for other startups to contribute and play a role in ensuring food traceability from farm to fork.

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Everyone needs to take care of themselves on a daily basis, and Gresham has spent years perfecting the hacks necessary to do that.

We specifically discuss these three hacks, but also talk about much more:

– 365 Gratitude Journal

– Insight Timer

– I am Coloring

If you don’t see the Apple player above, click on a link below to listen directly!

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This article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: Michal Czyz on Unsplash

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As an HR consultant for startups, I’m often asked this question by founders.

In the early stages of their startup journeys, founders typically spend the majority of their focus on product development or sales and marketing, with recruiting often left as an afterthought.

At some point, however, they always arrive back at the classic chicken and egg problem: in order to grow, they need the right talent, but in order to attract and retain the right talent, they need to grow.

To get out of that cycle, I usually advise founders to bulk up their startup’s HR muscle.

There’s certainly no hard and fast rule on when to hire an in-house HR, but generally after achieving product-market fit, there are some rules of thumb around team sizes founders can first take into consideration.

10-15 team members: Resources can be quite limited at this stage. As a founder, you probably didn’t have many issues recruiting the first few employees on your own, but as the business starts to scale and accelerate, the team will also need to expand accordingly. Bringing on outside talent to manage the hiring and onboarding process internally will be critical in preventing HR matters from occupying valuable mindshare. 

15-30 team members: So you managed to get to this stage without hiring any dedicated person to handle recruiting. It still might be wise to bring in someone, as HR expands beyond just recruiting to also include retention. While attrition is quite normal in any startup, retaining an employee (granted they’re performing well) is significantly cheaper than hiring a replacement, which can often waste valuable time and resources. 

30+ team members: If the startup has more than 30 employees and doesn’t have an HR yet, you may need to consider hiring for this role as soon as possible. At this size, sourcing job boards, editing job descriptions, facilitating interview and onboarding logistics will likely distract you from more mission critical things, such as fundraising, product, or business development. 

HR pains of a scaling startup

Many early-stage founders refuse to hire an HR because they view it as an unnecessary expense, and one that’s more suitable for large enterprises. In reality, many founders are unaware of or substantially underestimate the HR problems and needs they’ll encounter as a startup scales and the team sizes grow: 

Recruit specialists vs. generalists

In earlier stages of your startup, you’re likely hiring more generalists that can wear multiple hats due to limited resources. Once your company starts to scale, however, you’ll usually need to divide and conquer, that is recruiting more specialists that can significantly amplify the efforts of each function.

For example, full-stack engineers might be more commonplace in fresh startups, who would then gradually be replaced by separate front-end and back-end engineers as the organisation grows.                                                                                                  

Attracting and retaining talents

This includes everything from building the employer brand and marketing specific job openings to sourcing better quality candidates to adjusting compensation/benefits and work-life balance policies to optimise retention.

Also read: What will the next wave of VC investment in HR tech look like?

Regulatory and compliance requirements

Labour laws can be quite complex from country to country. Founders need to stay informed on basic hiring and firing legal frameworks to prevent the company from encountering any lawsuits.                                                                                                                                    

Company culture, mission, vision, and values development

Setting the vision, mission and values is extremely important, as these help create the company’s culture and establish objectives and goals that help employees navigate the organisation. Unfortunately, many companies lack these core components in the early-stages as the founding team is usually too occupied with other things.               

Performance/OKR/KPI appraisal and compensation structure

Compensation and performance reviews are resource-intensive but nonetheless critical components of any growing startup.                          

Design effective training and development programmes

At a certain scale, a startup doesn’t necessarily need to go outside to seek out talents. Instead, it could facilitate internal training to upskill existing talents and cultivate leaders from within.

However, many founders are not experienced in properly assessing employee capabilities and designing training programmes for them.                               

The different types of HRs

So, you’ve started to face some HR issues as your company has grown bigger and have decided to hire a professional to give you some peace of mind. Actually, there are two types of HR professionals that you most often see in early-stage startups.

HR co-ordinator

This role takes on broader duties and responsibilities, generally encompassing the recruitment, retention, training, management and development of employees; legal issues concerning employment; and salaries and benefits design. 

Recruiter

Given the critical nature and time-intensive nature of talent sourcing, recruiters are often brought in separately to specialise in building a strong pool of candidates for hiring managers to choose from. The scope of their responsibilities include understanding the organisation’s recruitment needs, creating accurate job descriptions, posting job descriptions in different channels, and even attending career fairs or recruiting events to source for candidates.

They also conduct the initial screening interviews before passing the candidate along to the hiring manager, while also managing the job offer process and on boarding.

Also read: 4 rising HR tech startups to watch out for in Singapore

There’s no doubt you will need an HR professional in your organisation at some point. If you have strong hiring needs, and if budget allows, it is best to have at least one HR and one recruiter in an ideal HR team.

But if the budget only allows the organisation to hire one, then you should try to look for a candidate with a multi-tasking gene — that is an HR co-ordinator with a knack for marketing and sales, which are critical for acquiring talent in a competitive industry, or a recruiter with solid interpersonal communication skills, which will often be used internally for talent management and development. 

Choosing one or the other is contingent upon the individual needs of each startup. Nevertheless, no founder wants to be brought down by back office operations.

Although certainly an investment upfront, hiring a high quality HR professional can actually save a founder a lot of time, resources and headaches, particularly those on a hyper-growth trajectory.

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The year 2020 has been a year of momentous change for the payments industry not just in APAC but also across the world.

Trends that were identified this time last year as emerging have been hugely accelerated as a result of the pandemic. Rapid growth was predicted, but it was unpredictable on the scale that has happened.

For example, and most notably, we’ve seen cash use decline even further this year amidst revelations that handling cash could spread infection. As the pandemic spread across Asia in the first half of the year, people were quick to reduce contact with physical materials and others, and instead reaching for contactless options to carry out daily tasks.

For retail, this meant a shift toward buying goods and services online, and where necessary, paying in-store by card. In fact, many merchants simply refused cash in a bid to do their part to stop the spread of COVID-19.

In Singapore, this shift was accelerated by the government which encouraged the economy to digitalise quickly to remain competitive and to adapt to the ‘new normal’, even creating payout programmes to incentive local micro business to adopt digital payment forms.

According to McKinsey’s 2020 Global Payments Report, by the end of 2020, we can expect a drop of four to five percentage points in the share of global transactions made with cash, and much more in some regions.

So, after a year of such rapid transformation, what does the (un)predictable future hold for the payments industry in 2021?

Buy now pay later (BNPL) will be a popular payment method

According to Paysafe’s LiT research, 56 per cent of global consumers mentioned that they used a new local payment method in the first month of the pandemic. One of these new popular payment methods is ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL).

BNPL schemes, popularised by larger companies like Afterpay and Klarna, were this year named as the fastest growing online payment method worldwide.

While relatively new to Singapore, local fintech like hoolah, Rely and Atome, are taking advantage of the trend and stealing market share from the traditional credit card services with their interest free offerings.

Predominantly an online payment option allowing consumers to pay in instalments for goods and services, some have even made their way in-store to capture audiences as they slowly return to preferred retail outlets offering on-the-spot credit for purchases and they’re proving popular.

Research from Kaleido predicts that BNPL value will reach over 12 per cent of total global e-commerce spend on physical goods by 2025. What’s more, Europe will be responsible for US$347 billion of e-commerce spend via BNPL mechanisms by 2025, representing 30 per cent of total e-commerce spend in that year.

Also read: 4 ways digital payments are helping businesses thrive amid a global recession

With the economy not expected to recover to pre-COVID-19 levels for some time, cautious consumer spending is a trend we see continuing into 2021. As such, this is certainly a payment method online merchants need to strongly consider offering consumers in 2021 and beyond.

Staying competitive will be harder

It’s no surprise that the figures from 2020 reflect a massive boom for global e-commerce. The ‘quickening’ effect, as coined by McKinsey, describes a 10-year shift in e-commerce experienced in just 90 days.

During the month of June 2020, amidst the height of the strictest lockdowns in many countries, e-commerce sales grew 34 per cent year-on-year — the highest growth rate reported since March 2008.

Interestingly, many consumers were not turning to their trusted brands during this critical period. Many shoppers branched out to new retailers with the ‘support local’ movement growing in popularity as people rallied to ensure the survival of local merchants who were forced to close physical outlets during the pandemic

Disruptions in brand loyalty have created a wealth of opportunities for businesses big and small, pushing them to take their operations online and across borders. Facebook even launched its own shopping feature to enable growing businesses to sell to customers on its owned platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp.

According to PPRO’s own research, one of the most-common reasons for cart abandonment at the checkout is that a customers’ preferred payment method was not available.

In fact, recent research has revealed that the global average rate of cart abandonment is as high as 75.6 per cent — causing brands to lose up to US$18 million a year in revenue. We expect this demand to continue, putting pressure on retailers to expand current payment offerings.

Seamless payments have to meet stricter security standards

As digital payments head toward a global tipping point, the need for greater regulation and security will only continue to grow.

Globally, two-factor authentication is growing in popularity. In 2019, Australia released the Card-Not-Present (CNP) Fraud Mitigation Framework, requiring Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) when a merchant’s fraud rate is above the recommended rate for two consecutive quarters. India requires two-factor authentication for all domestic debit and credit card transactions over INR 2,000.

As we head into 2021, payment providers and merchants worldwide must collaborate to ensure they’re prepared to adapt digital shops to these new requirements, while also ensuring the payments process they offer is seamless for the customer.

Also read: Lessons from the buy-now-pay-later boom

2021 will be the year for action — ensuring customers are adequately protected in an increasingly cyber world.

Payments should prepare for hyper growth

More and more customers are now online, some for the first time, and they’re looking for products or services that suit their very specific needs and they don’t really mind where they find them.

While the pandemic has meant countries are less physically connected than ever, in the online sphere, all borders have been eliminated: a shopper will look across borders (they might not even realise they’re doing it) in search of better-quality products, more payment options, preferred brands and more.

For merchants, this is a huge opportunity and one that could enable them to reach untapped markets if they are able to offer the right mix of goods, user experience (UX), local payment methods and delivery options.

With over 500 significant local payment methods across the globe, every consumer will have different payment preferences. To be able to scale up and succeed in the new normal, merchants must work with payment service providers to activate as many payment methods as possible at the checkout page.

While 2021 might be another challenging year for the global economy and people as they struggle through further restrictions and lockdowns the future for local payment methods (and savvy retailers who offer them) will certainly be very bright.

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Lazada announced today that it has appointed founding member Magnus Ekbom as the CEO for its Malaysian operations, replacing Leo Chow. This news was first reported by DealStreetAsia.

The company has not disclosed why Chow stepped down from his role and what his new role will look like. However, it states that under Chow’s leadership, “Lazada Malaysia has seen tremendous success with record-breaking growth and achievements year-on-year.”

Nonetheless, Ekbom has been with the e-commerce company since its inception and has served as the CEO of Lazada Indonesia from 2012 until 2015.

In his new position, he will be responsible for further growing Lazada presence in Malaysia and driving its long term strategy as head of the flagship platform of Alibaba Group in Southeast Asia.

Also Read: Consumer satisfaction with Qoo10, Lazada falls on the lower end: Study

Simultaneously, the e-commerce platform has also appointed Jessica Liu as Thailand’s first female country head succeeding Jack Zhang, effective immediately. In her new role, she will continue to serve as the president of Lazada Group and head of LazMall while Zhang will be taking a regional role at the company.

Liu began her career at the publisher China Machine Press, rising to vice president of its economics and management books branch after which she decided to work in Amazon in multiple divisions. She then joined Tmall, a B2C online retail platform operated by Alibaba Group in 2012, initially leading its footwear business. She soon moved to its fast fashion and luxury apparel brands unit.

These appointments come after speculation surfaced around long-running culture clashes between Alibaba and Lazada team in June last year — a claim that was denied by Lazada spokesperson.

Founded in 2012, Lazada is an online shopping and selling e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia which is present in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The company was acquired by Alibaba Group in 2016 after it replaced its CEO with a long-standing Alibaba executive and invested US$2 billion into the business.

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Image Credit: Lazada

 

 

 

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With the Grab-gojek merger talks hitting a roadblock over Grab CEO Antony Tan’s refusal to cede control of the combined entity, the focus has shifted to the merger discussions between Tokopedia and gojek, which have also been in the works for long.

While conversations between these three firms have happened on and off in the past, they have taken a more serious tone recently.

As per the latest report by Bloomberg, Tokopedia is in advanced talks with gojek for a US$18-billion merger deal and that the two tech giants have signed a detailed term-sheet to conduct due diligence of each other’s business.

The report suggests that Masayoshi Son, Chairman of SoftBank, which is an investor in both Grab and gojek, was forcing the two to come together but he failed to convince Tan on the benefits, which in turn is paving the way for a potential marriage between Tokopedia and gojek, Indonesia’s two most valuable startups.

Indeed, Tokopedia and gojek have been engaged in merger talks since 2018, but they gained momentum after the conversations between gojek and Grab reached an impasse.

Also Read: gojek in advanced talks with Tokopedia for a US$18B merger

While a union is still a work in progress and we don’t know yet which two entities will eventually come together, it would be interesting to examine which merger will make better business sense — Grab and gojek or Tokopedia and gojek.

First off, let’s look at the investments raised and valuation being commanded by Tokopedia and Grab.

If we look at Grab and Tokopedia from an investment and strategic points of view, both have surpassed the Series H stage. It means there is no room for the next round of funding, other than an IPO. Plus, neither is profitable as both keep investing money back into the business to further grow, expand and increase customer base.

“However, when compared to the whopping US$10.1 billion raised by Grab to date, Tokopedia’s ‘paltry’ US$2.8 billion looks way more nimble and leaves enough room for a higher valuation at IPO stage,” observed Sergei Filippov, Managing Partner of Singapore-based Morphosis Capital Partners.

Tokopedia, an e-commerce giant, has raised US$2.8 billion over multiple rounds and is currently valued at around US$7-8 billion. This means that the investors’ investments value have more than doubled (2.5-2.75x).

In comparison, Grab, which has raised US$10.1 billion till date, is valued only US$15 billion, meaning the value of the investment has increased only 1.48x.

“This is why I believe a Tokopedia-gojek potential merger holds way more business sense and provides better market value,” added Filippov, who has been closely watching the industry for long.

Incidentally, Grab Financial Group has just raised US$300 million in a funding round led by South Korea’s Hanwha Asset Management, as per a report by The Information. This could signal that the Grab’s financial arm, with all its fintech projects, may go to the IPO separately, which indicates that a Grab has no reason to merge with gojek.

“We should remember that financial services were one of the primary reasons why Grab’s valuation rose from US$3 billion in 2016 (when it was just a ride-hailing service) to US$15 billion in 2020 (when it started to offer wealth management services and insurance plans),” he shared.

Now, in terms of synergy, there is more synergy between Tokopedia’s C2C e-commerce marketplace and gojek’s ride-hailing/delivery/fintech units than between two gojek and Grab, who are direct competitors to each other.

Besides, gojek is already delivering tens of thousands of orders per day for Tokopedia, and there is a lot of on-demand products existing on both platforms; for example, one can buy gold in both gojek and Tokopedia.

“Combining e-commerce and unrivalled logistics network, the potential tech behemoth can play the role of Alibaba or Amazon for Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries,” commented Filippov.

A Tokopedia-gojek deal will also make better sense from a market point of view, as a Grab-gojek deal will only lead to a super monopoly, which will affect end-customers.

“Since SoftBank is a key shareholder in both Grab and Tokopedia, different merger talks are all about making more business sense, please investors and pose more value at a potential IPO to be a success,” according to Filippov. “We shouldn’t forget that all these different merger combinations are also there to test public opinion to estimate potential interest at the IPO stage.”

Unicorn dilemma?

Certainly, Grab, gojek and Tokopedia — all unicorns — make an interesting triangle. But, according to industry watchers, the talks among them indicate that there is a need to address the inevitable question for every tech business at this juncture of its lifecycle: where do you go from here after being coined a unicorn?

In fact, Grab, Tokopedia and gojek are from a similar cohort as Razer and Sea Group — the batch of tech startups founded from the late 2000s to early 2010s. Both Sea and Razer have graduated to the public market and demonstrated admirable success.

“Hence, many will ask whether the likes of Grab, gojek, Tokopedia and even Traveloka could follow suit, and if so, ‘when’,” said Dave Ng, General Partner of Altara Ventures.

In his view, Tokopedia and gojek could be complementary as their businesses have less competitive dynamics. They also operate in the same key market, which makes it potentially appealing to merge and create a national tech champion.

Also Read: Traveloka considers SPAC option as it plans to go public

Secondly, the marriage could create an overall business which now spans across multi-product and services categories, giving more legs to the aspiration of being a true super app.

Thirdly, from a culture and people perspectives, both companies grew up in an “Indonesian tech for Indonesia” environment, and the management of both sides haven’t really crossed swords.

“You can imagine it is likely easier to come to the table vs with someone whom you have tried to eliminate throughout your business life,” Ng opined. “However, this doesn’t automatically translate to more synergy or merit vs the case of a gojek-Grab merger. Otherwise, gojek wouldn’t have explored the option with Grab in the first place.”

Having said that, both these deals have their pros and cons. With the Grab-gojek union, there could be meaningful consolidation of market coverage, better efficiency on the costs side of equation, a combination of the strong regional talent pool and creation of an undisputed dominant player. However, these would only be achieved after considerable rationalisation across leadership, people, operations and processes.

“On the other hand, a Tokopedia-gojek combination may look appealing for various reasons. However, both companies are presumably not profitable yet. At such scale once combined and with multiple business offerings, they would need to figure out how to fund such significantly expanded operations going forward. That is not trivial,” Ng concluded.

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Image Credit: Photo by Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash

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Mynt, a Philippines-based fintech platform offering mobile payments and business loans, announced today it has raised over US$175 million in fresh capital from ASP Philippines.

ASP is a Limited Partnership fund managed by Bow Wave Capital Management, a Private Equity fund with a mandate to invest in strategic partners and investments of Ant Financial and Alibaba Group.

The new funds will go towards growing its product offerings to “further spur” the growth of financial inclusion and digitisation of payments and financial services in the Philippines.

The financing was raised in multiple tranches, with the post-money valuation of the final tranches reaching close to US$1 billion.

Also Read: Top 5 fintech predictions that will take over the world in 2021

Founded in 2015 as a partnership between Philippines’s largest telco Globe Telecom, locally-listed conglomerate Ayala Corporation, and Ant Financial, Mynt operates two fintech companies — GCash, a mobile payments service, and Fuse, a lending platform for Filipinos to get micro and business loans.

“The pandemic has acted as a catalyst in highlighting the importance of digital finance in society today and with this investment from Bow Wave, we look forward to further living out our vision of finance for all, enabling democratised access to payment and financial services to every Filipino,” said Martha Sazon, President and CEO of Mynt.

“Mynt has made great strides in the fintech space in the Philippines. Recognising this fact and our shared values, Bow Wave supports the vision of Mynt to provide finance for all Filipinos,” remarked Itai Lemberger, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Bow Wave.

As more and more Filipinos turn to digital services, GCash claimed it recorded a gross transaction value of over Php1 trillion (US$20.8 billion) in 2020, spurred by services like online payments, bank cash-in and sending money.

Also Read: GCash and Qwikwire partner to innovate real estate industry in Philippines

GCash shared it has reached over 33 million Filipinos with digital financial tools and services through its mobile wallet, using it for a variety of services including opening deposit accounts and acquiring insurance products.

“We are further encouraged by the fact that Mynt’s momentum has continued, even as the country moved out of quarantine restrictions, suggesting a fundamental shift in our customers’ behaviour towards a cashless lifestyle. We are confident in Mynt’s future prospects as a unicorn in the Philippines,” opined Ernest L. Cu, Chairman of the Board of Mynt.

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Image Credit: Mynt

The post Ant-backed Mynt nears unicorn status after raising US$175M+ from ASP Philippines appeared first on e27.

As we head into the new year, one question remains at the top of everyone’s minds: what will the future workplace look like?

Having lived through the biggest remote working experiment in history, many companies are now well-equipped to accommodate telecommuting arrangements.

However, as the number of COVID-19 community cases continues to remain at zero in Singapore, we see safety measures being relaxed and more people allowed back into the office. This poses yet another challenge for companies as they now need to adapt to a hybrid workforce, where only half of employees are working in the office, while the other half work from home.

For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), these frequent changes can dampen their productivity and efficiency. Compared to their larger multinational counterparts, SMEs have fewer resources, and oftentimes, employees need to wear multiple hats.

For instance, it’s not uncommon to find an administrative clerk doubling up as an office manager due to limitations in manpower. Thus, these frequent changes in workplace regulations can disrupt their daily duties, causing a dip in productivity and efficiency.

Moreover, through working with our clients and staff, we noticed that having the right digital tools is not enough to keep companies nimble and quick to adapt to today’s ever-changing work environment. Instead, there needs to be a fundamental change in the way the business operates.

To help SMEs tide through the crisis, we have found three proven business methodologies that SMEs can implement to stay leaner, operate at faster speeds, and be more agile. These methods include Parkinson’s Law, Kanban Board and the Agile Method.

Parkinson’s law

According to Parkinson’s Law, any given task requires as much time as it is permitted. Simply put, if you’re given two weeks to complete an assignment, you’ll most likely take the full two weeks to finish it, even though it could’ve been done in five days.

Now, imagine the amount of time you could have saved if the deadline was reduced by half! Thus, Parkinson’s law forces leaders to question how they set their deadlines and rethink how to best manage projects.

There are many ways SMEs can implement Parkinson’s Law in their business methodology. For starters, try cutting all allotted time for tasks and meetings by 50 per cent. Chances are you’ll find that many of these tasks can be accomplished in half the time.

Also read: 7 ways to increase productivity at work

However, if you find that the new deadline is too short, you can always extend it as you see fit. The key here is to experiment in searching for the optimal deadline times.

Parkinson’s law is especially relevant in today’s hybrid workforce, where physical oversight is virtually impossible. Leaders can’t stand over the shoulders of a team member as tasks are being performed, and hence implementing Parkinson’s Law can help to reduce time wasted on tasks.

Kanban Board

Kanban has slowly but surely become one of the most popular methodologies in modern business. This is because Kanban is a very visually representative methodology, requiring a big board either physically or digitally.

At its core, Kanban starts with three columns labelled “requested”, “doing”, and “done”. Each card is passed through the columns as it gets completed, but the kicker is the limit for each column. This forces teams to address problems if a card is stuck in “doing” for too long, creating a bottleneck for the next series of “requested” cards.

Many of today’s most popular productivity applications such as Lark have Kanban capabilities built-in, allowing users to quickly implement this methodology on a company-wide scale, departmental level or even on an individual level.

The Kanban is an effective method to help you understand issues your organisation may have with existing processes. The visual nature of Kanban means that you will naturally recognise bottlenecks when you see a column where tasks arrive faster than they leave and allow you to take appropriate steps to deal with the issue.

Furthermore, the strict work-in-progress limits imposed by the Kanban Board also push you to focus on completing existing tasks before taking on more.

Agile method

The last methodology is the agile method, which emphasises delivering products or outcomes in small increments. This incremental delivery comes with many advantages, as it allows teams to bring new products to the market faster, incorporate feedback along the way, and easily experiment with new features.

With the agile method, teams are also encouraged to continually test out new ways to see what does and does not work. This makes the agile method suitable for an environment where change is constant, such as in a post COVID-19 world, and helps teams remain nimble and adapt quickly.

Also read: How to manage energy and improve your productivity

While startups and computer software companies would be most familiar with this method, it’s starting to gain popularity in other industries as well. SMEs can also stand to benefit from the agile method, as its incremental approach allows companies to pivot quickly according to changes in the environment or market.

Overall, these three methodologies can be adapted and scaled depending on the size of the company. However, it’s crucial to note that above all, embracing change is key in today’s uncertain world. Whether that change stems from adopting one of these methodologies or from one of the dozens across the ecosystem, the process differs from business to business.

Finally, while we may not be able to predict how the future of workplace looks like, one thing is for certain: the way we work and collaborate has changed and will never go back to exactly how it was.

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The post SMEs, here’s how you can do more with less appeared first on e27.