Traveloka, the Indonesian online travel app unicorn, announced on Monday it has its eyes set on going public and was evaluating a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as a possible listing option, as per a Reuters report.

“A SPAC is one of the options we are evaluating given we have been approached by a few,” Traveloka President Henry Hendrawan said in a statement in response to a Reuters query.

According to the report, a source with knowledge of the matter said Traveloka is still deciding between a conventional IPO or a SPAC and could be valued up to US$6 billion.

Hendrawan had previously shared with Reuters in late 2019 that the platform is considering a possible dual listing in Jakarta and another centre such as the US.

He also shared with media in October that he expected Traveloka to potentially be profitable by 2021.

Also Read: Innovate and go: How Traveloka revamps its services to comply with changing travel behaviour 

Traveloka had recently closed a US$250 million funding round in July 2020 from a host of investors including Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and East Ventures.

This news comes amidst the growing popularity of SPACs in the region as Indonesian e-commerce giant Tokopedia had announced last week it was considering SPAC as a potential option for their plans to go public.

In an interview with e27, experts commented that the SPAC model that the company is implementing can be “an alternative” way to fundraise for startups in SEA.

“Having seen the more than 100 SPACs emerge in North America earlier this year, we are not surprised to see this new SPAC coming out to focus on Southeast Asia. We welcome this initiative, which will provide an alternative path to liquidity and access to public markets for one or more rising tech, financial services or media company in the region,” said Sanjay Zimmermann, Senior Associate at White Star Capital.

More from this story as it develops.

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Image Credit: Traveloka

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Traveloka considers SPAC option as it plans to go public; Eyeing a valuation of US$6B, Traveloka president Henry Hendrawan had previously stated that the company is considering the possibility of a dual listing in Indonesia and other country such as the US; East Ventures Managing Partner Willson Cuaca, who is an investor at Traveloka, stated that the company will be profitable by 2021. More here

ZA Tech forms insurtech joint venture with Indonesian e-wallet OVO; ZA Tech will provide know-how in insurance innovation and proprietary technology by offering well-defined platform-based solutions, which are built on the latest technology and capable of processing high volumes of data; The partnership aims to tap Indonesia’s largely underinsured population with only 1.7% out of the 265+ million being insured. More here

Digiasia Bios raising US$50M debt, eyes strategic investments; Co-Founder Alexander Rusli said that the company is open to divesting a minority stake to strategic partners as part of the equity fundraising plan; The company wants to use the funding to provide support to warung (mom-and-pop stores) in Indonesia. More here

Finantier secures funding from Y Combinator for its Open Finance platform; The company had previously raised a pre-seed round from investors including East Ventures, AC Ventures, and US-based Two Culture Capital; With this financing, Finantier seeks to expand its technology team and continue to grow its product offerings. More here

Cakap bags US$3M in Series A+ funding to expand its language learning platform in Indonesia; The investment was led by Heritas Capital with participation from Strategic Year Holdings and existing investors Investidea Ventures and Prasetia Dwidharma; The fresh funds will be used for talents acquisition, product development, and business expansion. More here

Navisteps snags US$1M in pre-seed funding to expand its corporate expense & travel management platform; The angel investors involved in the funding round included Yasuhide Fujii, Partner at KPMG Advisory (Myanmar), and Takuya Aiba, CEO and Founder of SpringLiner; The funding will be used to support market expansion in Asia and product development. More here

Fintech unicorn Pine Labs exceeds US$2B valuation after funding from Lone Pine Capital; While the terms of the deal remain undisclosed, sources believe it to be close to US$75-100 million; The company recently raised funding from payments giant Mastercard that brought it to unicorn status. More here

How foodpanda CTO approaches hiring and retaining the best tech talent; In this interview, Benjamin Mann shares how to cultivate an agile mindset and build a culture, use A/B testing effectively, work with customers’ feedback as well as his insights on notable trends in food delivery. More here

Tunas Farm raises pre-seed funding from Gayo Capital to launch its urban farming technology; Tunas Farm is currently preparing a production facility in Gading Serpong and an indoor display of vertical farming; They are also set to build a similar facility in other areas and to provide training for home-based hydroponic farming. More here

DRVR secures undisclosed funding from Smart Axiata’s Digital Innovation Fund to grow its fleet analytics platform; The company wants to expand its services into Cambodia and hire across the board; In 2018, it secured US$450K from an undisclosed group of investors and had earlier secured a small round of funding from an angel investor group in Hong Kong. More here

Skuad secures US$4M to ease remote team hiring through a single employment platform; Led by BEENEXT and Anthemis Group, other investors in the company included Alto Partners Multi-Family Office and Rohan Monga, CEO of Zenius Education. With the new funding, Skuad intends to develop its remote employment infrastructure and scale its growth team across multiple geographies. More here

11 Malaysian startups selected to join the Microsoft Emerge X Programme; The 11 startups include Alpha Red Services, Betacard, Leaderonomics Digital, Naluri Hidup, OrangeFIN Asia, SalesCandy, Setel, Softinn Solutions, Soft Solvers Solutions, Supplycart.my, and Talentcloud.ai; They will be participating in a year-long mentorship programme with Microsoft for Startups. More here

Cultured protein: A guide to every cell-based meat startup in the world right now; From a geographical standpoint, North America and Europe dominates the industry; There are 25 companies based in North America, 23 in Europe and only ten in Asia as well as an additional ten from other parts of the world. More here

Digitising Thailand’s food chain: National traceability system to focus on organic products first; The government of Thailand has ambitious plans to digitise the nation’s food and agricultural industry and is starting with a national tracebility system TraceThai; It will first focus on tracking organic foods, according to the Ministry of Commerce. More here

HKSTP launches biobank and biomedical informatics platform; These platforms are firsts for both commercial and academic biomedical tech research and development in Hong Kong and set to foster biotech co-creation and commercialisation; The initiatives are available for use by Park companies, as well as universities and research institutes. More here

Thailand leveraging smart health to be APAC’s new medical hub; Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) said that advancing the country’s healthcare infrastructure to become an APAC medical hub within five years will require significant technological development in telehealth, smart medical applications, and robotics; Leveraging smart health tech and robotics will also be dependent on the reliable availability of 5G connectivity in hospitals and medical centres. More here

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The COVID-19 pandemic has left no country untouched or industry undisrupted. It has proven to be a challenge too large for any one government or sector to tackle alone. From healthcare authorities and big pharmaceuticals to tech companies, one crucial factor in the fight against this dreadful disease is the ability to adapt. But to rise to the occasion, organisations first have to understand where they need to get to, and that requires information, or data.

Across the globe, the monitoring and analysing of big data for actionable insights is being put to use, giving rise to initiatives such as contact tracing, movement control in highly-affected areas, or the distribution of financial aid to people in need. But state-sanctioned measures or corporate-led campaigns can only go so far. To make a real impact, the public and private sectors must work together, sharing information and combining resources.

In Southeast Asia, with infrastructure development and public funding so varied between nations, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are even more vital to ensure timely and beneficial solutions to socio-economic challenges.

By removing barriers and information silos between sectors, data-driven PPPs can be formed, which will effectively address some of the biggest hurdles of the crisis, such as healthcare infrastructure, and general wellbeing and mental health, and create swifter and smarter responses to the pandemic that will pave the way to a more resilient and sustainable economy. 

In the region’s more developed economies, such as Singapore, strategic and open collaboration between public and private entities has led to an effective, agile and inclusive crisis response. A strong example of this is contact tracing. In Singapore, the government collaborated with a group of private-sector technologists to build a secure and comprehensive COVID-19 contact tracing system, named TraceTogether.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Palexy picks US$1M funding to help offline stores achieve e-commerce-like success through real-time consumer data

Taking the form of  a physical token and a mobile app, the system exchanges Bluetooth signals with other TraceTogether users nearby, gathering data to aid digital contact tracing efforts. The incredibly short timeline of this project – the TraceTogether app was launched in March 2020 – can undoubtedly be attributed to the collaborative efforts between the government and the private sector.

Combining information sources, as well as knowledge and expertise in hacking, firmware development and privacy, this PPP leveraged data-driven insights to deliver an effective and secure solution that would not have been achieved without swift contributions from both sectors.

Similarly, in Danang, Vietnamese authorities worked with tech companies to effectively execute localised lockdowns to curb isolated COVID-19 outbreaks whilst managing to avoid a wide-scale economic shutdown. Having to amass far-reaching, ear-to-the-ground data on COVID-19 cases, the government identified alternative solutions from the private sector.

Leveraging Facebook’s Disease Prevention Map and Google’s Community Mobility Reports, the Vietnamese authorities were able to access and study mobility data. This collaboration led to a rapid and efficient curtailment of movement in specific areas, as opposed to a full lockdown nationwide.

As a result, Vietnam was able to limit the economic impact while containing the disease and reopening the targeted areas faster than it would from a national lockdown. Through this PPP, the government was able to monitor and evaluate the impact of its national policies almost in real-time, iterating and refining measures adaptively based on big data insights made possible by private-sector companies. 

In another example of a successful collaboration between the government and the private sector, Gojek established a data-driven initiative in Indonesia to provide financial assistance to millions of essential transport workers during the pandemic. Gojek worked with Indonesia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs to help identify ride-share drivers and provide them with over IDR1 million (US$93) in economic aid.

By leveraging insights from driver data, Gojek helped the government identify those most likely to be financially impacted by the disruption so it could distribute aid in tiers to support those most in need. 

Also Read: PropertyGuru further expands footprint in Malaysia with acquisition of MyProperty Data

The above PPPs offer valuable lessons and a blueprint for future innovation and resilience in Southeast Asia. Thanks to a surge in tech companies investing in the region, there is a growing wealth of data being generated and collected. This presents exciting potential for innovation across Southeast Asia, based on actionable insights mined from big data that go far beyond the pandemic response. 

The opportunity is twofold: first, in solving mobility problems – such as traffic congestion and pollution – in traffic-heavy countries such as Indonesia and Thailand, and second, in building smart cities in densely populated and technologically-advanced countries such as Singapore. For example, in 2019, Gojek signed a partnership with the Indonesian government to accelerate the development of Jakarta’s smart city project, with the goal to build a safe and more integrated transport system.

Under the partnership, Gojek used open data to identify the city’s most-frequented transit hubs and worked with the government to build shelters or pick-up zones at the hubs. The result was an increase in public transport ridership, with Gojek serving as the first and last mile transport provider for those journeys. Such innovations are made possible through collaboration between the public and private sector, which leads one to think: How can we foster a culture of even greater collaboration, and what other possibilities are there? 

Greater collaboration will require higher levels of trust and openness between the public and private sectors. For governments, they should view the sharing of data with private companies as integral to improving people’s lives from a more ground-up, community approach. For companies, they will need to ensure easy and secure access to data for partners, and foster an insights-driven culture.

Building such a culture is easier said than done, as it includes building a robust data architecture and infrastructure, hiring the right talent, and empowering all employees to think like data scientists. As nations across the world hunker down to get through the awful effects of COVID-19, governments and businesses must embrace the lessons, failures and achievements from this year, to work towards their targets, and build a brighter and more resilient future that is driven by data.

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Cakap, an Indonesian online language learning platform, announced it has raised US$3 million in a Series A+ funding round.

The investment was led by Heritas Capital. Participating investors included Strategic Year Holdings and existing investors Investidea Ventures and Prasetia Dwidharma.

As per a press release, the fresh funds will be used to expand its team, improve its technological solutions and grow its business across Indonesia.

Established in 2013, Cakap develops online learning applications enabling two-way interaction between students and professional teachers through video calls and text conversations.

The edutech startup claims it achieved profitability this year and its student numbers have grown 10 times since the beginning of the year and 30 times compared to the same period last year.

“Our solution solves the problem of the lack of access to high-quality education, not only for students in the big cities but also for the whole of Indonesia, including third tier cities and remote areas. We are excited to be part of the digital learning transformation in Indonesia, increasing access to high-quality education and elevating people’s lives in the long run,” said Tomy Yunus, Co-founder and CEO of Cakap.

Also Read: These Indonesian edutech startups are helping students cope and thrive during the COVID-19 crisis

“Cakap has created a unique and relevant solution for the Indonesian market and there is no better time to scale with many Indonesians and students becoming more internet savvy day by day. The company offers a compelling impact proposition through providing access to affordable quality education,” said Charis Goh, Director at Heritas Capital.

“From 2016 to 2019, the market for online education has grown rapidly, but in hindsight, it was a modest growth compared to 2020’s growth. The current pandemic has been a tailwind for Cakap and the rest of the online education industry,” said Arya Setiadharma, CEO of Prasetia Dwidharma.

Indonesia has one of the largest education systems in the world with over three million teachers across 300,000 schools. Edutech funding in Indonesia has also been steadily gaining momentum, with funding tripling in 2019.

Notable edutech startups in the market included Ruangguru, Zenius Education, and HarukaEdu.

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Image Credit: Cakap

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Fintech company Pine Labs has raised funding from American hedge fund Lone Pine Capital, bringing its valuation to over US$2 billion. While terms of the deal remain undisclosed, sources believe it to be close to US$75-100 million.

“We are excited to partner with Pine Labs as they innovate at scale in the payments and merchant commerce space, benefiting consumers, merchants and financial institutions,” said Mala Gaonkar, Portfolio Manager and Managing Director at Lone Pine.

The funding comes in just more than 11 months after the company raised funding from payments giant Mastercard that brought it to unicorn status.

Incorporated in Singapore, the India-based company serves large, mid-sized and small merchants across Asia and the Middle East as a payments platform.

Its technology platform enables offline and online last-mile retail transactions, provides customer insights to merchants for targeted sales and offers risk-managed financial solutions for merchants’ business growth.

Also Read: Fintech firm Pine Labs raises US$125M from Temasek, PayPal for Southeast Asia expansion

After noticing the rise in the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services trend, Pine Labs decided to expand its integrated BNPL solution to five Southeast Asian (SEA) markets in early 2020 along with Mastercard.

“Small businesses and consumers are fast adopting to digital commerce and contactless checkout. We are also seeing tremendous uptake in Pay Later services and have now enabled nearly 150,000 outlets for this. It’s time to invest heavily in offline and online commerce across India and SEA,” commented Pine Labs CEO B. Amrish Rau.

Pine Labs was started in 1998 as an offline retail payment provider, but today serves more than 150,000 merchants in 3,700 cities as a fully digital payment acceptance technology. Its Pay Later platform currently has 35 credit providers such as IDFC Capital First, Zest Money, ICICI Bank among others.

In July 2020, the company made a strategic investment in Fave, together, the companies now provide cashless payment solutions to over 50,000 merchants across Malaysia, Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries.

The company’s key investors include Sequoia India, Mastercard, Actis Capital, Temasek and PayPal.

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Image Credit: Pine Labs

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Indonesia-based fintech startup Finantier announced today it has received an undisclosed amount in funding from Y Combinator, the accelerator programme behind household names such as Airbnb, DoorDash, Stripe and Dropbox.

The firm will be joining the accelerator’s Winter 2021 (W21) batch, beginning next year.

With this financing, Finantier seeks to expand its technology team and continue to grow its product offerings.

Finantier had previously raised a pre-seed round from investors including East Ventures, AC Ventures, and US-based Two Culture Capital.

“Y Combinator is a unique opportunity for Finantier to accelerate growth with the help of world-class mentors, connect to some of the top early-stage investors and build strategic partnerships for our future expansion plans,” said Diego Rojas, CEO of Finantier.

By partnering with Y Combinator and Two Culture Capital, Finantier shared it is eyeing an expansion into other emerging markets beyond Southeast Asia.

Also Read: The future VC will be a hybrid between accelerator and incubator. Here’s why

Rojas, Keng Low, and Edwin Kusuma founded Finantier earlier this year to provide the infrastructure and data products required by businesses to build the next generation of financial services.

The startup aims to enable digital platforms to securely work in collaboration with financial institutions to create “seamless and personalised” experiences for consumers, who can benefit from their data.

Finantier currently offers an API and infrastructure that powers other fintech products, accelerating time to market and reducing costs for businesses while delivering solutions for consumers to ensure both can benefit from its Open Finance ecosystem. It remarked it is the first company in Indonesia to provide such features.

Since raising its pre-seed round, Finantier claims it has managed to onboard more than 20 clients as part of its beta programme.

“We leverage on the digital footprint of consumers and businesses to enable them to securely access tailored financial services that improve their financial wellbeing,” adds Low.

Willson Cuaca, Co-founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures notes that Finantier helps to address the needs of roughly 139 million adults in Indonesia who are underbanked or unbanked.

Also Read: Border-crossing and financial inclusion: The story of fintech in ASEAN

According to East Ventures Digital Competitiveness Index 2020, which maps digital economic development across Indonesia, financial inclusion is where the largest divide was found.

“Providing equal access to financial services will create multiplier effects to the Indonesian economy. Currently, hundreds of companies work with their own unique solutions to bring financial services to more people. We believe Finantier will help them to offer more products and services to this underserved section of the population,” said Cuaca.

By mid-2020, there are more than 450 licensed fintech companies in Indonesia with around 40 per cent of them being P2P lending firms.

“Fintech lenders are frequently unable to extend loans to consumers and businesses. This is due to incomplete information, or the inability of fintechs to obtain the full financial picture of a borrower to de-risk their operations and reduce costs,” said Edwin Kusuma, COO of Finantier.

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Image Credit: Finantier

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Mastercard-backed Indonesian fintech startup Digiasia Bios is raising up to US$20 million in debt funding to provide lending support to local warungs (mom-pop stores) in Indonesia. This update was first reported by Dealstreet Asia.

Aside from that, the startup intends to offer a minority stake to partners as part of its equity fundraising plan as part of their effort to offer “something that can add value,” according to co-founder Alexandra Rusli.

Digiasia Bios was founded in 2017, as a payments technology platform that is geared towards bringing financial inclusion in the country.

The company has already developed a large number of partnerships that will help reach its goal of providing digitisation into the daily lives of Indonesians.

Some of its partners include remittance companies such as Western Union and Mandiri Syariah and large vendors such as iRMA and Metrodata.

Also Read: Jakarta, Singapore named as top global fintech ecosystem in a new report

It is also currently affiliated with several fintech companies in Indonesia including KasPro, an e-wallet and payment platform; KreditPro, P2P lending and financing platform for small and medium-sized businesses; and RemitPro.

Recently, Digiasia raised an undisclosed round of Series B funding from Mastercard. In addition to providing capital, Mastercard is providing the startup with strategic assistance to strengthen its suite of financial services.

At the end of 2019, the Financial Services Authority revealed that the financial inclusion index had hit 76.19 per cent, passing the government’s target of 75 per cent for the year.

There has been a particular emphasis on the capacity of fintech to drive additional inclusion and economic opportunity. According to McKinsey, the digitalisation of commerce in Indonesia could help to add an additional US$150 billion to the country’s GDP by 2025.

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One of the distinctive features of the Indonesian tech startup ecosystem is its close relation to the informal sector. A leading example would be gojek, who started out by working with motorbike taxi riders (ojek) and helping them embrace the digital era by enabling customers to hail them from a mobile app. Another good example would be Warung Pintar, who is helping mom-and-pop stores (warung) digitalise its operations.

These startups have raised a great amount of funding and made a difference in the ways Indonesians are using these services.

Today, at the end of 2020, another startup is getting ready to innovate with the informal sector: Lahapp.

Lahapp aims to innovate how customers are interacting with travelling food vendor, or known as pedagang keliling. Commonly found in both urban and suburban areas, food sellers travelled by foot, bicycle, or motorbike to offer their products directly to customers in their residences. They usually use a modified cart to carry and prepare their products.

A notable part of Indonesian street food culture, it provides a level of convenience that can only be rivalled by food delivery services. But there is one simple barrier to accessing these services: Sometimes, you might just miss it.

This is something that Lahapp founder Rachmat Efendi has experienced many times before.

Also Read: How foodpanda CTO approaches hiring and retaining the best tech talent

“… There is a segment in the culinary industry that remains untouched by digital innovation, and that is travelling food vendor. Often we wait for our favourite bubur, bakso, or nasi goreng seller, but we miss them –simply because we fail to hear them coming or we happen to be away from home. This is something that has happened to a lot of people, including myself,” he explains.

“This is why we are building an on-demand feature that enables customers to check and summon food vendors in his area.”

The Lahapp service is available as a mobile app and a WhatsApp chat. In addition to travelling food vendor, customers can also use the app to order frozen or packaged food from sellers in other cities.

The platform is currently undergoing the testing process and is set for a launch in Q1 2021. In its debut, Lahapp will be available for users in Greater Jakarta Area and Bandung.

The startup says that it has secured 3,800 culinary merchants onboard its platform.

Learning from experience

The Lahapp platform is currently run by a team of 10, including the founder.

Efendi himself is not a new face in the local startup ecosystem. He was known as the COO and co-founder of Anterin, a logistics tech startup that was acquired by MNC Group in January.

There are valuable lessons that Efendi has learned from his time with Anterin that he is implementing at Lahapp. One of them is related to scaling up.

Also Read: Ex-Senator of Japan joins Myanmarese food delivery app Hi-So’s new funding round

“The number of downloads is proportionate to the investment required to build infrastructure. This is why we need to choose an optimum platform, be it from the perspective of technology or investment. This is why Lahapp is available as a mobile app and WhatsApp chat,” he elaborates.

“WhatsApp was chosen … as it was already a default platform for communication. It also does not require a great investment in building infrastructure. It is just like a chatbot, but it does more than just doing conversation,” Efendi continues.

To acquire its users –from customers to merchants to couriers– Lahapp utilises omnichannel marketing strategies. It also plans to team up with cooperatives and local businesses to grow its presence in Indonesian cities.

Beyond food

In the future, Lahapp wants to expand its offerings to include other services including airline ticket booking and even vehicle registration number extension.

It also believes that working with travelling food vendor will open the door to many great opportunities.

“We have yet to find a platform or registry that keeps a record of the number of travelling food vendors in Indonesia. If we are able to seize this opportunity, this segment will be able to compete with others in the culinary industries,” Efendi says.

“At the moment, there are many food vendors that are not able to register their service on various food delivery platforms as they are unable to fulfil the administrative requirements. This is why Lahapp decides to tap into this opportunity,” he closes.

Lahapp is currently fundraising for its first funding round.

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Image Credit: Lahapp

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The pandemic has brought about a number of big changes, so perhaps it’s no surprise that one of these is a significant shift in consumer behaviour. As with much of the modern world, predictability (and carefully curated customer profiles) has been thrown out the window, and organisations face the constant uncertainty of new demands and expectations, which shift daily.

The movement towards online channels is one of the biggest influences on the way customers interact with brands, and McKinsey reports that digital customer interactions have been accelerated by four years in APAC.

In response, digital offerings have progressed even faster, racing ahead more than a decade. To ensure customer experience (CX) is front and centre despite all this change, businesses must look to meet customers where they are, to deliver what they need. 

To gain a better understanding of what this means for organisations in Singapore, Zendesk partnered with research analyst firm Ecosystm to dive into CX challenges and initiatives for 2021. Our findings lined up perfectly with our global research about businesses’ CX investments and the message is clear: organisations investing in CX will reap business benefits, during and beyond the pandemic.

Consumer expectations are constantly shifting

In this “new normal” we keep talking about, digital strategies and data capabilities drive the customer experience. Increasingly, customers expect quick, simple and accessible support that can instantly provide the answers they need.

Whether this comes in the form of a self-help knowledge base, a reliable AI chatbot, or a quick message to a support agent, the key is being wherever your customers are, whenever they start asking a question. 

Also Read: A closer look at Zendesk: fostering better customer relationships for startups everywhere

A great way to identify these platforms is to think about how to accommodate customer preferences. In APAC, customers value speed, convenience and ease of use, which has resulted in a 66 per cent increase in average weekly social commerce tickets since the beginning of the year.

To respond to digital demands, more than half of businesses (57 per cent) in Singapore are placing a stronger emphasis on digital and omnichannel experiences, with these capabilities rising as a top CX priority. Identifying and adopting these emerging trends help businesses adapt to new touchpoints and bridge and maintain customer relationships no matter what this ongoing pandemic throws at us next.

Examining the role of CX beyond COVID-19

The main thing to remember here is this: good CX doesn’t stand still. It’s constantly moving alongside its customers’ expectations, expanding offerings and growing together. What is bleeding-edge today can be mass market next year, and in between these changes, CX allows businesses to remain grounded in customer-centricity, empowering them to constantly put the customer at the heart of everything they do. 

Ultimately, this drives great business outcomes, with 88 per cent of local businesses increasing CX spend expecting early recovery by mid-2021 (58 per cent), while others were unaffected (20 per cent) or have even improved their business (10 per cent) during the pandemic.

On the flip side, 88 per cent of others that stagnate and decrease CX spend are seeing much later recovery timelines. If you don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of the coin, start exploring the investments you need to create exceptional experiences today.

One business that knows this well is our customer Carousell. The e-commerce marketplace invests heavily in both internal and external knowledge bases and AI, which dramatically increases agent efficiency. When COVID-19 hit, Carousell was able to quickly develop self-service content to address their customers’ key questions and concerns. 

Superior CX adds real value to your customers. Importantly, these interactions enhance customer trust and loyalty, propelling business recovery and growth out of the pandemic.

Also Read: Undeterred by losing its largest customer, DRVR secures funding to grow its fleet analytics platform

Best practices to leverage CX for business growth

By leveraging CX, businesses can move quickly to set themselves up for fast growth in 2021. It starts with making the most of current conditions to distinguish your organisation’s superior support and services. Here are some best practices that can guide your investments and plans:

View CX agility as a key competitive advantage

Organisations with customer-centric agility work off a dynamic feedback loop, constantly listening to customers and responding by adjusting to meet their needs. As a result, they experience better outcomes, such as the continuous business improvement seen by two-thirds of Singapore organisations.

This trend is echoed across the region – our earlier research in partnership with ESG indicated that companies with the most mature CX capabilities saw were 10.8 times more likely than their less mature counterparts to have significantly grown customer spend, even during the pandemic. 

Tap into tools to power your digital strategy

A successful digital strategy requires a three-pronged approach: technology, people and processes. These work together to create the best digital experiences. Training support agents is important, but businesses must pair this with the right technology investments to be able to provide personalised and optimised CX.

Close to half of Singapore businesses (46 per cent) are already prioritising staff training, but only 30 per cent focus on improving CX technologies, which may hinder them from reaching maximum CX potential. 

Automation and AI to stay ahead

AI tools boost support performance by delivering personalised customer experiences. Across APAC, 43 per cent of those with the most mature CX capabilities are making use of automated methods, such as chatbots, to build and update cross-channel customer profiles.

To meet evolving customer demands, businesses that want to stay ahead of the curve must be the early adopters of these advanced solutions.

Also Read: Humanising customer experience is the best way to build loyalty in a post-COVID-19 world

Regardless of your industry, company size, or business model, your customers should always sit at the heart of what you do. Customers form the foundation of your business, and long-term relationships based on genuine value and strong loyalty will always bring benefit. So look to creating the best experiences that put your customers first – and quickly, you’ll see the outcomes.

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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

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If social media juggernauts like Facebook are known for anything, it is for building communities, bridging people, and amplifying voices that can impact the world meaningfully. In order to fortify this mission and help uplift more communities, Facebook recently launched a six-month Community Accelerator programme that aims to equip community leaders with the training, membership, and funding necessary for their respective community’s growth.

The goal of the programme is to help enable community leaders to understand and address their needs in sustaining and strengthening their communities, while establishing and managing strategic relationships with key partners — all to bolster and embolden their efforts.

“Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. We started the Community Accelerator programme to help community leaders on Facebook grow and sustain meaningful communities that have a positive impact on the world,” said Grace Clapham, Facebook’s Head of Community Partnerships APAC.

Also read: Bolstering healthtech: Thailand’s bid to become Asia’s medical hub

As such, last December 18, thirteen communities from the first cohort have graduated from the programme. The communities from Asia Pacific — particularly from countries like Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines — who finished the programme marked their virtual graduation ceremony with presentations at the inaugural Community Accelerator Demo Day. Ranging from food security projects for rural children to education initiatives for people living with disabilities, the communities that have completed the programme show dynamic range and have proven to provide positive impact to different communities all over the world.

“Undaunted by the challenges COVID-19 has presented to them, we are proud to see how participant community leaders have taken learnings from the programme, built connections with other leaders to help them achieve and even surpassed their initial goals. Our heartiest congratulations to all the participants and we look forward to seeing their continued success,” Clapham added.

13 communities who finished the six-month programme

1. #MentalHealthPH was created in 2016 to promote and protect mental health in the Philippines through the use of social media and digital technology. The community focuses on creating a safer digital space for every Filipino with the vision of creating a mentally healthy community for all. #MentalHealthPH’s programs and advocacy reach 40,000+ followers, connecting volunteers, partners, influencers and supporters through virtual and on-ground activities.

2. In 2009, Ayesha started Advancement for Rural Kids (ARK) to partner with farmers and fisherfolk to solve hunger, get kids back to school and create a self-sustaining future. Starting with ARK’s 5-cent School Lunch, farmers and changemakers co-create and co-invest in a path for communities in need to stand on their own. With 16 partner communities and one million 5-cent lunches, ARK zeroed out malnutrition, brought 5,000+ kids to school, and created new economies for a hopeful future.

3. In 2017, BEAGIVER was founded to provide individuals and organizations opportunities to make social impact in their communities. It has since become a movement that champions education for impoverished children by providing school bags, supplies and scholarships, and supporting other education-related projects. The movement has reached 67,000+ school children in 200 communities in the Philippines and has launched other projects to empower communities.

4. In 2017, Maria Korina started Filipina Homebased Moms (FHMoms) to help mothers obtain financial security and personal growth by helping women find home-based livelihood opportunities. Starting as a Facebook community, it has grown into a platform offering e-learning, ecommerce and job matching opportunities. FHMoms support its 209,000 members with free webinars, computer rent-to-own, job opportunities and giveaways.

5. Yohana Habsari started Indonesian Babywearers after finding relief from her postpartum depression through babywearing. It is now a community that empowers parents by promoting positive learning habits and ethics in everyday life. Its 108,000+ members have learned about babywearing and connect through events on parenting topics through local chapters in multiple cities around the country.

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6. Lack of education is one of the leading causes of unemployment for people with disabilities in Thailand. To help solve the problem, Chatchai Aphibanpoonpon started LearnNaiDee, a program to improve education for people with disabilities to unleash their full potential in life. Since its launch, 600+ students with disabilities have found their path to higher education through their Facebook page, Group, and annual offline-events.

7. Local Alike was established in 2011 to develop, empower and connect Thai tourism communities to the world. 300 villages across Thailand successfully and sustainably run their community-based tourism business. The community works with 150 villages, generating more than 2M USD in tourism income for them.

8. Nur Yana Yirah founded MotherHope Indonesia (MHI) after being frustrated with the lack of family support when experiencing postpartum depression. It is now a safe place for moms and promotes perinatal mental health literacy to support mothers and families affected by perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Through Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, 33,000+ members have been educated and supported by MHI and some members have become mental health professionals.

9. Kanpassorn Surivasangpetch started Ooca in 2016 to help people through the stigma of mental health by connecting people to a psychologist and psychiatrist anonymously through an online video call platform. Ooca has become the leading platform to help people through stigma and inaccessibility, while also helping mental health professionals better connect with their clients. 72,000 people are registered on the Ooca platform and 6000+ people have received online help.

10. Ripple GI started in 2016 to connect young Australians with purpose-driven career development opportunities and increase their civic participation. It now supports purpose-driven young people to harness their agency and create impact in every sphere of their lives. Ripple helps 10,000+ members create impact by matching them with thousands of purposeful career opportunities, training them to build communities and lead youth voter drives.

11. In 2019, Sepri Andi started Social Connect in Indonesia to build affordable access to mental health knowledge, resources, and consultation for less than 5 USD per month. Social Connect has become a friendly place where mental health survivors share their stories, sign up for a class, get consultation, and receive help. Its 5000+ members have given back through a variety of projects, such as writing articles, hosting online seminars, offering consultations, and creating a support group to help mental health survivors get better and recover.

12. Young Pride Club was established by Best Chitsanupong in 2018 and supported by WSC CMU to provide a safe learning space for young people interested in gender equality and the LGBT+ community. The community provides on the ground and online activism activities to develop leadership, participation, and cooperation for gender equality and diversity advocacy. It has 20,000 followers and has developed 50+ young LGBT+ leaders across 4 regions of Thailand, collaborating with 50+ NGOs and organized Chiang Mai Pride with 1,000 participants.

13. Seniors make up 20% of the Thai population. Within this demographic, 80% are active seniors, but are often excluded, leading to boredom, depression, and health issues. YOUNGHAPPY helps seniors maintain an active lifestyle that promotes their self-esteem, keeps them engaged with their peers, and supports their wellbeing. 60,000 members of the community and 5,000+ elderly participate in their activities, helping to increase WHO’s active ageing index by 15% higher than Thailand’s average.

Having received growth-related training, hands-on mentorship, and funds to grow their community and create impact, we can only expect great things to emerge from these communities.

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