After the engaging discussions with the community at the e27 Webinar: The future of investing, I wanted to share some more guidance to startup founders on how to manage the crisis.

Who is the winner?

Early stage companies have more adaptability and can easily make changes compared to larger companies. While there are advantages being in the early-stage category, as you are able to manoeuvre and adapt your product, during these current times, you have to really take into consideration the sector you are in.

Some sectors such as hospitality and travel have been severely affected and need to think of a complete rehaul and reassessment of their business and business models. Others such as B2B SaaS, healthtech, e-commerce have seen a rise in demand.

As things change, it boils down to the survival of the strongest teams that can work together to come up with the customer and product-led business models and growth. When defining what goes into the making of a strong team, there is no difference between pre-COVID-19, COVID-19, and the new normal.

A strong team is a strong team and some of their key characteristics are experience, expertise, execution capability, and an obsession with the problem they’re solving. There is a strong differentiating factor between someone who is just opportunistic vs someone who is obsessed with their business.

Also Read: Is your startup in need of funding? Let the e27 Pro Fundraising Highlight do the trick!

Overall, the drive, adaptability, and a great product-market and founder-market fit within the team are crucial.

If a strong team is at a point of determining where to start, there is a lot to consider- If you are starting something in a popular vertical, there’s always going to be much more competition. There are also opportunities that can be found in less popular verticals and less crowded spaces. One must look at both sides to balance between competition and intensity.

Fundraising during the crisis

I am cautiously optimistic about the early-stage startup scene as funding rounds are still taking place and I firmly believe strong teams will get funded. Mediocre teams with rigid business models that have not been well thought out may have been able to get funding during normal times– but now, that is not going to be the case.

The most important thing for the early-stage funding scene is LP capital, which is largely speaking still in the market. While angel investors and family offices are naturally being more cautious, VCs are still investing. Southeast Asia-focused venture capital funds US$1.3 billion in additional dry powder in the first three months of 2020.

While the appetite for risk has decreased significantly over the last few months, people still need to develop a COVID and crisis-proof plan and conserve cash to have a longer runway. This would mean a normal time cash runway (18-24 months), plus another six to twelve months.

If there is anything positive that comes out of a crisis, it’s new ideas and ways of doing things to adapt to circumstances. Think of this as a time of opportunity, especially in the area of business model creation-innovative business model structures are critical for this foundation of any startup.

Also Read: Unlike in the west, layoffs are only the last option for Asian firms during a crisis: TranSwap’s Benjamin Wong

The path of profitability matters in the real world, not as much the plan. While it is important, a financial plan in the seed stage doesn’t mean everything as it is largely a test of logic and a test of understanding your business. What matters most is unit economics and having a clear line of sight to making money down the line- the sooner that is, the better. Venture Capital exists for the purpose of getting you thereby fuelling your growth.

In terms of reaching out to investors, there are various ways to connect. Warm introductions are always more powerful and usually help get your first meeting or call. It will be harder to get funding from people you’ve never met, so start with the people you’ve previously met face-to-face.

I would still say, don’t underestimate the power of cold reach outs, persistency, and pure hustle. I also strongly advise founders to research and do their homework on the macro and micro aspects, background of the investors, and VCs and reach out to people to get a sense of the sentiment.

Listen to things like podcasts from experts and it doesn’t really matter if you’re a first-time founder, just go for it!

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In his annual post, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that virtual reality would transform our relationship with technology in the 2020s. The web dominated the 2000s and the mobile apps 2010s; now, virtual reality is going to make groundbreaking innovations this decade.

If what Facebook supremo says is true, then we will witness a whole new era of how we perceive technology and its aspects in our day-to-day life.

Well, VR isn’t new to the marketers. We’ve already witnessed an example of virtual reality technology back in 2015 when Nike promoted their product with a 90-second video. Another remarkable example is the Dubai frame, where the Fernando Donis of DONIS Architects have used emerging technology to show Dubai’s architecture, economy, and infrastructure. They literally transport tourists to the bygone era to give them an experience of Dubai’s legacy.

Hence, VR has the potential to transform how we create marketing strategies. It is encouraging marketers to get more creative and think out of the box. In the beginning, it would give some stress to your pocket to create a virtual reality set up, but there’s a lot of potentials to generate leads if you use it in the right way.

Even though VR is still in its infancy, but many brands are leveraging the technology to expand its user base. Here’s what you can learn from them.

Also Read: Singapore’s VR-based proptech startup Foyr raises US$4.2M to expand to US

Let your customers have a feel of your products

To have a good start, you must learn from the pros. IKEA and Carnival cruise enable their customers to feel their products, hence equipping them to make more informed decisions.

IKEA gives a virtual kitchen remodelling experience to its customers. The customers can interact with the set up as if they’re standing in it. They can also change the kitchen’s colours and styles to gauge what their kitchen would look like after remodelling.

Similarly, Carnival Cruise takes its customers to an instant Caribbean vacation by giving them a virtual tour of their cruise.

By satiating the needs of their customers, they create the right hook for them and make them brand loyalists.

Transcend people to their favourite place

The god of fantasy drama series Game of Thrones (GOT) embraced virtual reality to transcend their fans to the land of Westeros. Imagine the excitement and adrenaline level GOT fans who got to experience the actual set up! Now imagine the bond they fostered with their fans!

What can you learn from them?

The virtual experience is more than asking your audience to put on a virtual headset. It’s a fully immersive event that gives your audience the control to make a better purchase decision.

Also Read: Cambodia-based Aniwaa expands business with the launch of VR/AR headset comparison tool

Create a niche for yourself

New York University (NYU) is using this technology for recruitment. You’d be amused to know that the students were given VR devices and asked to download an app that would take them on a virtual tour of Mars. The colours and the designs of the images were sourced directly from NASA.

Hence, NYU stood apart from other schools by using virtual reality. On one hand, it enabled teachers to choose the best out of the lot; on the other, it helps students to gauge their learning in the NYU.

Are you experimenting with virtual reality?

In the coming years, VR would grow many folds. More and more brands would incorporate this technology into their marketing strategies. It’ll help brands to give a virtual-real-virtual experience of their products. You can be the next big name in your industry. How? By being an early adopter and leveraging VR for your marketing and advertising activities.

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When a founder thinks about Taiwan, engineering talents and a sizeable, well-developed digital ecosystem are normally at the top of mind. But increasingly, entering the mix is Taiwan’s growing AI capabilities, the result of both industry trends and government policies.

In her inaugural speech given in May, re-elected President Tsai Ing-wen mentioned six core strategic industries for Taiwan that included an acceleration of AI and IoT while highlighting the future of digital and data.

In order for an AI ecosystem to flourish, both the government and the private sector must embrace and work to build it. In October 2019, the National Center for High-Performance Computing co-worked with Quanta Computer, ASUS, and Taiwan Mobile to build TAIWANIA 2, a supercomputer built for AI, which offers its cloud service through Taiwan Computing Cloud (TWCC).

Since its commercialisation, TAIWANIA 2 has driven over 300 projects from industries, academia, and research organisations. Ten million GPU computing hours have been utilised, AI training time has been reduced by 90 per cent, and the efficiency of deep learning has been raised 498 times.

The added capacity far exceeds the current computing demands of Taiwan’s AI industry, seamlessly aligning with the country’s national strategy.

As Taiwan gradually becomes a major AI centre for the development of Greater Southeast Asia (ASEAN + Taiwan), tech companies are starting to pay attention. Microsoft has already promoted their AI Infinity programme to recruit talents and set up R&D centres.

Also Read: Roundup: Samsung-backed HR-tech startup Swingvy launches in Taiwan; Filipino ride-hailing firm Angkas pivots to deliveries

In addition to covering commercial AI solutions, think tanks are being set up and Microsoft is also cooperating with National Chengchi University to open AI business courses for enterprises to understand how to implement AI to accelerate transformation within their company.

Although the new virus that broke out in the first half of 2020 halted some commercial activities and significantly impacted many existing industries, the epidemic did not stop the development of Taiwan’s AI ecosystem. In the process of updating the 2020 H1 Taiwan AI Ecosystem Map by AppWorks Accelerator, we found that in the last six months, there have been several trends worth noting:

Digital marketing platforms are shining

During the pandemic, consumer behaviour has changed. Their shopping habits accelerated from going to physical stores to switching to online channels instead. How companies can stand out in the online world has become a new learning curve for retailers. This epidemic will not only accelerate the speed of digital transformation of the traditional retail industry but also give rise to smart retail, which integrates online and offline experiences as their focus.

In the past few years, we’ve noticed that AI innovation focusing on digital marketing operations have sprung up. By using AI technology to accurately do ad placements, track user journey and behaviour, and analyse the collected data, companies are able to outline consumer profiles and thus more accurately predict consumer shopping preferences and price orientation, creating personalised shopping experiences for each visitor.

Even visitors that don’t end up converting or placing an order provides a gem of data analysis. Companies can use AI and big data to target this group of potential customers who have yet to make a transaction by carrying out re-marketing campaigns to improve conversion rates and overall marketing performance.

The opportunities are endless under this trend, especially for startups. In February 2020, MarTech startup Accuhit, which just raised a NT$70 million pre-A round, provides both subscription-based use and project-based consulting to analyse customers’ historical purchasing behaviour and make predictions.

Also Read: Roundup: Samsung-backed HR-tech startup Swingvy launches in Taiwan; Filipino ride-hailing firm Angkas pivots to deliveries

Omnichat specialises in a marketing automation subscription service that provides multi-channel conversational commerce focusing on e-commerce clients. The platform has an average conversion rate 3x to 7x higher than the overall trend in e-commerce. They recently completed a seed round earlier this year, led by AppWorks Funds.

Introduction of AI applications in healthcare

Alongside digital marketing, AI is also thriving within the medical field. According to Global Market Insights, the global healthcare AI market will reach US$13 billion by 2025, with an average annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 40.6 per cent from 2019 to 2025. Over the past six months, particularly during this pandemic, AI usage in improving the efficiency of medical consultation and disease screening is at an all-time high.

Taiwan has accumulated years of experience in the development of AI in healthcare. Since medical AI algorithms require a large amount of labeling data in order to train the model, as early as 2018 the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) co-worked with National Taiwan University, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, and Taipei Medical University to open the first pathology database for cross-institutional annotated medical images in Taiwan.

These kinds of developments not only help physicians accelerate medical image interpretation and improve the consistency and accuracy of diagnoses but also shorten the time for patients to seek medical treatment and reduce invasive examinations.

In the startup ecosystem, we also see a rise in the development of AI in healthcare startups. We see applications like developing AI technology for over a billion-pixel image analysis and high-performance computing (AI HPC) with AI Explore; medical imaging AI platform services with aetherAI; medical staff assistance to interpret Computer Tomography (CT) scans for cerebral hemorrhaging with Deep01; and during this epidemic, Heroic-Faithdeveloped a smart respiratory monitoring system.

A friendly ecosystem for AI startups is gradually taking shape

As more AI startups plan on expanding to other markets, Taiwan is considered a hotbed in terms of startup accelerators, education, and research for AI founders to leverage the ecosystem. AppWorks Accelerator focuses on recruiting AI / IoT and Blockchain founders only since August 2018 and has so far recruited 89 of these startups, with 44 of them being AI and 16 of them being IoT.

Together these startups are well-positioned to further accelerate Taiwan’s burgeoning AI ecosystem.

In addition to AppWorks, there are many other accelerators supporting the AI ecosystem in Taiwan. Microsoft for Startups, Sparklabs Taipei, Taiwan AI x Robotics Accelerator, and more are all community builders that recruit AI, startup teams.

Under this AI wave, other accelerators that aren’t focusing on AI have also found success in recruiting AI startups, such as TAcc+ and BE Accelerator.

Also Read: Taiwan AI tech startups to stand out for Global Recognition at CES Eureka Park 2020

In VC, investment in AI companies has also grown year-over-year, providing financial assistance to AI startups looking for growth or expansion opportunities. For example, AppWorks Funds is a VC focusing on the three themes of AI, Blockchain, and Southeast Asia. Other well-known VCs in Taiwan include ACE Capital, Cherubic Ventures, TransLink Capital, and more have also greatly invested in AI in the past two years.

In Taiwan’s thriving AI ecosystem, new AI developments can be seen in various well-known technology exhibitions and forums. At the annual COMPUTEX conference, there’s a new startup-themed exhibition called InnoVEX that has attracted many talented AI founders to sign up to build bridges with investors and enthusiasts from all over the world.

This year due to the pandemic, COMPUTEX was cancelled for 2020 and InnoVEX changed to #InnoVEXOnlineDemo. NVIDIA also held their famous AI conference NVIDIA GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in Taipei in 2018, providing opportunities for all stakeholders to meet and each other. GTC Taiwan 2020 is expected to be held this year in Taipei.

There are institutions in the field of AI education and research, respectively. They continue to inject talent and innovation to Taiwan’s AI development. There was a tragic loss for the community of Taiwan’s AI ecosystem as Sheng-Wei Chen passed away earlier this year.

He was the CEO of Taiwan AI Academy and founded the organization that has cultivated more than 6,000 talents for Taiwan in the span of two years. His contributions include progressing the mission of transforming industries with AI, making data science known as his north star, and growing AI talent.  He and his work will forever be remembered by Taiwan’s AI growing community.

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The six largest Southeast Asian countries represent one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing regions, with a population of 668 million and a thriving GDP of US$4.7 trillion by 2025. Of all industries in the region, the financial services sector holds an exceptional potential that could be released if essential underlying challenges are focused on.

With only 18 per cent of its adult population using a bank account to receive wages and only 11 per cent borrow from financial resources, the region’s 70 per cent of the adult population is either unbanked or underbanked. Apart from this, millions of Southeast Asia’s small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) lack capital funding.

Remittance and digital payments are the turning points. Everyone is looking at digital financial services as a means of controlling these challenges. The high numbers of smartphone usage in the region– even higher than the use of financial services– make customer adoption of services such as e-commerce and ride-hailing easier, which provides opportunities to offer embedded financial services.

Among all financial services, these turning points will highly occur in the next five years. Both services, digital payments, and remittances are at or approaching the turning points now.

The most advanced service, digital payments, will exceed US$1 trillion in transaction value by 2025. Other financial services such as lending, investment, and insurance are still emerging, but each is booming by more than 20 per cent annually through 2025.

Also Read: TraXion, a blockchain-powered fintech startup for underbanked population, raises US$2.6M via private sale

Banking on technology

The effect of leveraging technology to offer the unbanked and underbanked financial services could boost the gross domestic product (GDP) in markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines by two to three per cent, and in Cambodia by six per cent.

Taking advantage of this opportunity could help shape the future of the financial services industry, specifically in smaller markets like Cambodia and Myanmar. Only a tiny percentage of the current needs for financial services of these markets are met by formal providers.

“Businesses can not compete on a global scale and citizens can not explore the possibilities of working remotely for international companies due to an inadequate cross border payment system. Financial exclusion creates many limitations,” says Philip Lim, Founder, and CEO of Skybit, a company that uses blockchain technology to provide a modern financial bridge between Myanmar and the rest of the world.

By offering digital financial services to individuals and businesses through advanced technologies, financial inclusion can open limitless possibilities for growth not just for the country’s economy but also to empower the population to avail financial services that were once limited.

“Blockchain enables monetary value to flow freely across the world over the internet, making it easier for it to enter countries like Myanmar. When blockchain is used in tandem with local mobile money platforms for domestic distribution of the country’s fiat currency, even people in rural areas without bank accounts could participate in international trade and finance,” Lim added.

Also read: How fintech is disrupting the Southeast Asian payments market

How fintech can impact financial inclusion

Fintech and blockchain solutions will have the most significant impact on financial inclusions. For example, these innovative technologies can enable fast, low-cost and customer identification and verification processes such as know-your-customer (KYC) schemes.

These services can alter the economics of the supply chain by addressing last-mile distribution and servicing issues through digitally-enabled physical access points such as smartphones or point-of-sale devices.

Digital financial services can become prevalent throughout the payments ecosystem. Government-to-person payments such as employee payments, both wages and pensions, and remittance flows can create the initial push for electronic payments, thus, supporting the development of possible supply-side business cases.

Integrating blockchain in financial services can significantly enhance access to credit by using alternative sourcing data such as payment transactions. This will improve customer profiling, fraud detection and credit risk assessment.

For savings, it can be mobilised digitally through alternative distribution channels, such as mobile wallets connected to savings accounts and automatic goal-based savings products. A secure KYC will also help in providing access to savings accounts for the unbanked and the underbanked.

“Blockchain and fintech would go a long way in empowering businesses and Myanmar citizens to participate and compete on a global scale. Aid organisations can benefit immensely by being able to receive donation payments from around the world. Financial inclusion will empower locals to create online businesses, look for remote work opportunities and conduct cross-border trading,” Lim explained.

Also read: What makes investments in fintech and alternative lending in SEA promising?

The future of digital financial services through supportive regulations

Digital financial services are expected to generate at least US$38 billion by 2025 and account for 11 per cent of the entire financial services industry. To attain the full revenue potential of US$60 billion, it requires several factors to put into places such as continued investment and incentives to stimulate mass adoption. But the most significant challenge curve will be supportive regulations and government policies.

This means that there is a need for a coordinated push in digitisation and financial inclusion, licensing, and electronic KYC to allow virtual banks and other financial services. It also means that there should be an established infrastructure such as digitised national ID systems, real-time payment systems, and effective credit bureaus.

These infrastructures will help Southeast Asia’s financial inclusion through the digital financial services industry reach its full potential.

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Since the rise of smartphones, social media platforms, and technologies such as augmented reality, consumers’ comfort levels with technology are on the rise.

For retail experiences especially, today’s consumers browse their mobile devices or walk into a retail store and expect their experience to be enhanced by technology in some way — whether it be facial recognition, personalised ads, product recommendations, or more.

Visual search capabilities are one of the most dynamic technological breakthroughs impacting retail today, as they allow visuals to connect consumers with products, thereby eliminating the need for keyword searches — a huge challenge that consumers face today.

In fact, almost half of consumers are most excited about visual search in their shopping journeys. And while visual search technology has had one of its most profound impacts on e-commerce experiences, we’re also seeing more use of the technology in-store, thereby bringing enhanced convenience and interchangeable shopping experiences to consumers.

Mobile devices are the driving force that has bridged the gap between online and offline experiences — and have in a way become personal shopping assistants. Because consumers are inspired at any time, whether they’re browsing content online or influenced by an outfit someone is wearing, it has become essential for them to use their device on hand to seamlessly find what they’re looking for.

Brands also reap the benefits of this as when their products are more discoverable and have increased ‘findability,’ they’re seeing higher conversion rates, better brand loyalty, and higher revenues.

Also Read: Why humanising e-commerce will be the game changer for DTC brands

Here’s why mobile devices are such a crucial component of the shopping experience today.

Online product discovery goes beyond a brand’s website

Product discovery can happen on a brand’s website, but also while browsing social media and on third-party e-commerce websites. Today, more consumers are inspired to make a purchase after seeing a product on Facebook than any other social channel, and 75 per cent make at least one purchase a month on social platforms.

Because consumers can be inspired anytime, anywhere while browsing content — which normally occurs on a mobile device — technologies like visual search make it easier to screenshot inspirational images and find the products within them.

Shoppable content also makes e-commerce experiences even more convenient for consumers as they can click and be directed to a site where the product is available. Long are the days when consumers relied solely on keywords to find what they’re looking for.

Retailers need to capitalise on all the visual enhancements available today in order to boost product discoverability.

Consumers are inspired anytime, anywhere

Almost half of the world has smartphones today, so it’s important for retailers to connect and engage with consumers on these devices. This is critical for shopping experiences as consumers are often physically inspired, therefore it’s a more seamless transaction if they can tap into visual search capabilities directly from their devices.

Also Read: E-commerce trends: What to expect in 2020

Research has even found that 90 per cent of shoppers are more likely to purchase a product if it’s visually searchable on their smartphone. This also goes for in-store shopping as smartphones are being used more in-store to price compare, search consumer reviews, or find additional product information — simply by capturing a photo.

This means visual shopping is no longer tethered to online-only, and retailers can also benefit from it at the in-store level by empowering a wherever, whenever shopping experience.

When shoppers have the proper tools and resources needed to find products on-the-go, the chances of losing a possible sale is lower. Whether it’s online or in-store, inspiration can spark at any time and it’s important that consumers feel they’re equipped with what they need to make it a reality.

Consumers today expect their shopping experiences to be enhanced by smart, mobile technologies, especially visual search and product recognition. Therefore, brands and retailers need to ensure that they’re adopting these new trends to stay competitive. After all, what use is an amazing product if it cannot be discovered easily?

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There have been a lot of changes overwhelming the professional landscape across most industries since the beginning of the year. The outbreak and its aftermath caused market shifts that led to companies closing their doors, suffering little to no business, and entire industries dropping to record lows of interest.

However, these market shifts were a catalyst for positive change in other industries which found public interest and business opportunities higher than ever during the pandemic scare.

The challenges that the COVID-19 outbreak has generated for recruitment across all sectors don’t seem to be going anywhere though, and a recruitment process that’s designed to tackle these challenges head-on is more important than ever.

We’ve already entered the early stages of what will soon become a war for qualified talent. As industries recover and companies find their balance, the hunt for promising talent displays all the signs of a quick and competitive race.

While the talent market is currently bustling with potential hires, high-caliber candidates will disappear from it first.

Also Read: Vietnam’s JobHopin nabs US$2.45M Series A to make recruitment easier in Southeast Asia

Perhaps it’s still too soon to accurately predict what our new reality will be. Perhaps as the situation improves, employment opportunities would eventually rise to match the global supply of talent.

One thing is certain; employers need a post-pandemic talent strategy that outlines their approach to recruitment in the coming months.

Flexible candidates for flexible roles

Flexibility in this context can refer to a remote workforce model or professionals capable of working unusual shifts and hours. Flexible roles are most commonly those of an advisory, marketing, IT, or sales nature.

A flexible workforce can cut through COVID-19’s impact on business continuity. Moreover, such employees help diversify the company’s model as well as provide employers with the financial flexibility of hourly and project-based rates.

HR Technology

The current situation presents the perfect opportunity for companies to adopt new tools. It’s impeccable timing in which organisations can reassess their processes and recruitment strategies through HR Technology.

Healthy communication and consistent productivity are an important factor in talent acquisition and retention. Oversight in this regard often falls to the HR department, as they need to monitor this aspect of the workplace at all times.

Also Read: How Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can improve a startup’s recruitment marketing

More often than not, the HR department has to set the pace of the team’s communication as well as organise and prepare the workplace and manage everyone’s paperwork.

Human resources processes generate a significant amount of data on a good day. But recruitment generates even more on its own. Adopting HR technology and SaaS products can ease your HR department or recruitment agency’s workload and simplify the data management aspect of their tasks.

Implementing the right SaaS for recruitment, allows these companies to import and integrate such existing data into the platform, simplifying data management, and funnelling information to the appropriate tab or function.

More importantly, these changes allow your HR to shift their focus and their processes towards tackling the finer details of recruitment that software cannot achieve. For example, some companies choose to implement an ATS capable of automating the majority of the process, of parsing resumes, scoring candidates, and recommending the top picks for the top positions. This directly saves the recruitment team time and effort.

Focus on your current workforce

Various industries have been having a difficult time with their recruitment over the past few months. Not only did the outbreak create new hurdles for every industry out there, but access to these talents have also become limited.

Also Read: Vietnam’s JobHopin nabs US$2.45M Series A to make recruitment easier in Southeast Asia

The various regulations and international travel laws have more or less blocked out the global talent market. Companies found themselves losing access to the foreign and immigrating workforce.

Though there are a lot of ways that struggling companies can improve their recruitment, like hiring remote workers, leveraging recruitment tech and communication tools, some industries such as travel and hospitality are better off focusing on their current workforce rather than recruiting new talent.

We aren’t saying that recruitment should be abandoned altogether, but this situation and these circumstances are as difficult for aspiring candidates as they are for your current team. HR professionals can shift their focus to guide the workforce throughout these unusual times, manage their difficulties and professional issues, as well as provide resources and support as needed.  Working to improve internal communication is very important in maintaining a motivated workforce during these uncertain times.

Prepare your post-pandemic strategy

This pertains more to the industries most impacted by the pandemic. Business in the hotel and hospitality sector, outdoor dining, and travel to name a few. A large number of candidates in this sphere have opted to make the shift towards more promising or thriving industries.

However, once the pandemic blows over and restrictions are lifted, you can expect suffering sectors to come back with major recruitment changes and fierce competition over top talent.

Preparing your company for a post-COVID 19 recruitment campaign begins now.

Also Read: Go-Jek acquires Indian recruitment platform developer AirCTO

Companies that take this time to act by cultivating relationships and connections with promising talent in their sphere, will have the advantage of accumulating valuable data from potential candidates.

The advantage depends largely on the frequency of this networking exercise, an advantage with great long term value, especially since the expected wave competitive recruitment will be on a large global scale.

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For the last few years live commerce has been steadfastly developing and evolving.  Undaunted by early rejection from most retailers and seeing its popularity soar overseas, live commerce has persisted as it waited for its coming-out party.  That moment appears to have arrived.

COVID-19 by any measure has shaken us to the core but has also forced the reexamination of the ways business has been, and now will need to be, conducted.  No sector is that more evident in than non-essential retail, which was hit disproportionately hard during the pandemic.

For most of these retailers, there will exist two eras of their businesses: pre-COVID-19 and, if they’re fortunate, post-COVID-19.

As retailers begin to pick themselves up off the floor, dust off their shoulders, and look towards the future, they face difficult, never-imagined decisions about how to move their businesses forward.  A key, perhaps the key, the issue they must resolve in this new normal is how to serve their customers who are, for now at least, simply unwilling to shop in-store.

As a result, live commerce suddenly appears on track to finally fulfil its destiny as the conduit between online and offline buying experiences.

The concept of retailers and brands marrying their physical and digital channels has been around since the birth of e-commerce.  How can the website drive in-store foot traffic or how does a brick and mortar visit improve online conversion rates?

Also Read: Why humanising e-commerce will be the game changer for DTC brands

Figuring out this yin and yang of retail has never been more critical, but also never more achievable.

Recent technological and streaming video advances have made true live commerce a reality and the timing could obviously not be better. Retailers can now utilise their expert in-store sales associates to service online customers via live shoppable video, to help those previously anonymous and unassisted shoppers over the purchase finish line.

This virtual in-store co-shopping experience is available today and is just one innovative way retailers can blend their offline and online channels.

With several technologies available on the market and a recent pandemic to spotlight its necessity, what could possibly continue to delay the inevitable adoption of live commerce?  The root of the answer is as old as the launch of e-commerce itself.

Most retailers still operate online and offline as separate businesses.  Each with their own siloed budgets and P&Ls.  Further, in many cases, retail and e-commerce divisions aren’t exactly allies and can be quite territorial about their domains.

Does a transaction get credited to the store whose sales associate helped an online customer or is it simply counted as an e-commerce sale?  Who cares, right? Well, primarily the people whose job performance and compensation are tied to those sales numbers.

Also Read: DTC and native: Is it the perfect e-commerce partnership?

So while COVID-19 has certainly shown a bright light on the need for retailers to utilise live commerce, for it to truly transform, the leadership within these companies must ensure culture is established to act as one cohesive unit rather than two separate, self-serving arms.

If ever there was a time for that type of transformative and philosophical change vital to best utilise live commerce it is now, on the heels of a pandemic when a certain galvanised resolve is born out of the destruction.  Times of desperation lead groups of people previously at odds come together for a common cause or purpose.

So, if retailers can’t realign their thinking to get everyone pulling together in the same direction now, when can they?  Forward-thinking companies, those that enable internal unity and launch live commerce to service customers where they’re comfortable shopping from – likely their couch, can thrive in the new normal.

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We started Ohmyhome in Singapore in 2016, with a goal to establish a one-stop Property solution. Since then, we have expanded to Malaysia and, later this year, our third market. While every startup faces unique challenges in attempting to expand, a common denominator for success has been early investment into building technology that will eventually serve us when the time calls for it.

Whether you’re developing an app, integrating e-payment options, or trying to build a website for your company, the sooner you make a conscious investment into integrating tech to your everyday business and its operations, the earlier you will see dividends.

This is especially so when it comes to expanding into Southeast Asia which looks to add 50 million new middle-class consumers by 2022 and is set to become the fourth-largest market in the world by 2030. It is only possible to serve all of this population growth with the deployment of technology.

Moreover, the growth of these areas is focused on its tech sector with the region’s digital economy projected to reach US$300 billion by 2025.

Here are some of the key reasons how we have benefited from our technology. Hopefully, it can help you too.

Also Read: How tech startups can transform the supply chain in Southeast Asia

Automation and a lean Workforce

Repetitive, menial tasks are inevitable in any operation but the tedium and effort expended to complete them need not be. Business Process Automation (BPA) has been on the rise and it is not hard to see why. By automating administrative tasks as much as possible, your staff will be freed up to do higher-value work that brings more value to your company and more value to themselves on a personal level, keeping them more engaged in their jobs.

Salespeople are able to meet clients who have been pre-filtered to match the salesperson’s personality, expertise and knowledge, allowing them to know the customer even before meeting them, saving time in potential missteps. Customer relations can respond quickly to enquiries and focus on building relationships.

On a fundamental level, automation also means equipping your staff with the skills and mindset to spot inefficiencies and address them with technological solutions. To that end, we provide training for staff in simple automation tools like creating and utilising macros in excel.

Our staff have created macros to automatically scrape information from forms and organise them into databases, and when the solution is more complex they are able to communicate effectively with our tech team on what improvements can be made because of their training. Minimising mundane tasks makes your staff more efficient, improves morale, and saves cost.

This is especially important for startups expanding to new markets. Not only does automation let you hit the ground running in a new market, BPA solutions often also allow you to keep track of progress on different tasks without having to be physically present. This proved to be invaluable when we had to make a quick engineering decision affecting our overseas office that required re-scheduling of work for multiple teams.

Also Read: Disaster Tech innovation is key in mitigating the impact of natural disasters


Using Trello, we were easily able to assess which tasks could be moved and adjust various task deadlines easily. When you’re managing a regional tech team, Trello makes adjustments like this seamless. Managing multiple offices across different countries is a tall order but it can be made simpler through automation.

Information drives results

Information is powerful. In the case of expanding to new markets, it is indispensable. Before embarking on a new product feature or deciding on the next market, it is crucial that startups gather and analyse data sets to assist in crafting market entry strategies to avoid costly mistakes.

Getting started on data analytics early also means that you can proactively alter your strategy, business model and decision making skillsets based on the results you are monitoring.

While people can debate about the interpretation of data, in the current business landscape data analytics is fundamental in ensuring that you have what you need to make informed decisions. Otherwise you are flying blind and working on hunches.

An added benefit of investing early in tech as a startup expanding to new markets is being able to decide where to base your tech team. For instance, while Singapore has ready access to a skilled workforce, it can be expensive to host your tech team here and for small startups, this cost might be prohibitive.

Many companies, instead, have remote teams in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, or the Philippines where manpower costs can be up to 40 per cent lower.

Also Read: Indonesia’s beauty-tech startup Social Bella raises US$58M Series E from Temasek, Pavilion, Jungle Ventures

In our business, our data analysis has enabled us to match buyers to sellers even before the viewing of a property. This allows us to consistently be the fastest transacting platform since our launch.

Adaptability

The pandemic has underscored just how vulnerable businesses can be to major disruptions. Companies struggle to cope with the new reality of business because of their lack of a digital presence and infrastructure.

On the other hand, companies that have integrated tech into their core operations were better able to adapt. For instance, our business continuity plan depends heavily on tech solutions which our team were already experienced in using.

As the world slowly begins to move forward from the pandemic, it is likely that many business practices will be irrevocably changed. We have already observed how quickly a service such as Zoom can become ubiquitous because it fulfilled a need for video conferencing at scale and made it easy to host and share meetings.

Investing early in tech allows you to see opportunities to fill gaps in the market such as Zoom did in an already saturated market with established players such as Skype and Google. Or at the very least, it means having the capacity to quickly adopt new technologies and integrate them into your operations.

Scaling up

One thing you hear a lot about expanding to new markets in Southeast Asia is how important localising your product is. That often means enabling features or services that are region-specific which in turn necessitates that your tech solutions are flexible and robust enough to accommodate these changes.

Also Read: Here are the real reasons why the tech startup scene in Asia is thriving

Early investment in tech coupled with a strong vision for the future means you are more likely to make the right tech decisions for the long term and avoid mistakes that limit your growth. Overhauling your code architecture is a time-consuming and labour-intensive endeavour that slows down progress on new feature development and improvements to your app but might be necessary if the structure is untenable in the long run.

Speaking from experience, this was a hard lesson to learn. When we were preparing to launch Ohmyhome, like many startups, we were under intense pressure to launch quickly which forced us to make choices that we eventually realised was limiting our growth. In the short term, making quick fixes to avoid making services unavailable seemed sensible.

However, with each new addition and hotfix, we built an increasingly unstable house of cards. Ultimately, we made the difficult decision to put new developments on hold to revamp our code architecture with a sustainable foundation.

The above is a non-exhaustive list of the ways that early investment in tech will help your startup when expanding to new markets. In todays’ world, whatever your business might be, investing early in tech is one of the most advantageous moves you can make as one builds towards sustainable success.

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Register for our next webinar: How to pivot your growth strategy post COVID-19

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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

Image credit: ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

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