For better or for worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed how we live our lives. From the way we work to meeting our daily lifestyle needs and wants, and even the way we socialise – digital adoption has never been greater than it is today.

Audiences surveyed across five countries, from Singapore, the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada were found to have increased their online spending, with 71 per cent of respondents claiming an increased amount of online shopping activity.

Businesses too have quickly pivoted to ensure their survivability in this climate. Digital platforms that facilitate online work collaborations such as Zoom, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, and Slack have seen an even more drastic increase in adoption and activity when compared to consumer platforms.

Despite making headlines for its security flaws in recent times, Zoom saw its meeting participants grow from an estimated 10 million in December 2019 to over 300 million in April 2020. These numbers collaborate with reports that digital adoption by both consumers and businesses has fast-forwarded and exceeded global projections by five years.

With the rising popularity and dependence on digital platforms, there is an increasing need for platform developers to ensure that their platforms are optimised for user experience. The pandemic has also seen more and more traditional firms adapting their underlying product in the light of digital, to cater better to your target audience.

In order to keep up with the new kind of “always-connected” consumer behaviour, businesses are constantly looking for avenues to upgrade their digital platforms.

Cryptocurrency exchanges: Opportunity in the midst of a crisis

The evolution of the digital economy has enabled companies to achieve greater goals beyond geographical boundaries. Along with the technology, digital financial services are also rapidly changing –especially as new players step onto the field. The increasing competition in the fintech space means that service providers often have to innovate to stay relevant.

Also Read: Has COVID-19 pushed us into the digital future?

In the past couple of months, since the pandemic swooped across the globe, crypto trading saw an unexpected boom as traditional investment assets took a hit. The crypto exchange space, which has always been a competitive industry, was suddenly flush with new opportunities.

However, blockchain technology and cryptocurrency trading’s stigma of being overly complicated has often proved daunting for the crypto-curious. Cryptocurrency exchanges now faced a new challenge to stay relevant –onboarding new traders and ensuring their interface provided the best experience possible.

Earlier last month, ExMarkets launched a new-look homepage that simplified key information such as data on top gainer markets, a live scoreboard of the platform, and a profit estimator, in addition to a near-instantaneous registration process in the hopes of streamlining the onboarding experience for new traders.

Since the launch of the new homepage, our platform has experienced a boom, averaging over 2,500 new users per day. As a case study, it emphasised the importance of adopting a user-centric approach to staying relevant in the market by putting the human before the technology, so to speak.

Humanising the digital customer experience

The shift towards digitalisation is set to bring about more service interactions in the near future. As customers are experiencing less brick and more click, there is an increasing need to invest in purposeful interactions that foster an emotional connection.

According to Gallup analytics, a brand’s digital presence can communicate the brand’s values if defined, designed, and delivered properly. The use of emerging technologies such as augmented or virtual realities provides great opportunities for brands to represent and distinguish themselves virtually.

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

Expanding on my statement earlier of putting the human before the technology, a humanised customer experience begins with understanding the emotions of the users coming onboard. A recent study by PwC indicates that 59 per cent of consumers feel that companies have lost touch of the human element in their customer experience. One effective way to humanise customer experience is by building a user-centric platform that personalises customer interaction.

Amazon’s Alexa is an example of a brand optimally combining digital and human elements to drive customer engagement. What was initially designed to be a platform that facilitates online shopping has become a household necessity in many developed nations.

Alexa being the brand’s digital voice, not only places orders but has also grown into a well-celebrated personal assistant that sings, jokes, and sets reminders for the users. Amazon’s success with Alexa highlights the importance of enriching service experiences in the digital world.

Building an ecosystem through partnerships and collaboration

The increasing reliance on digital solutions in day to day lifestyle has backed the rise of digital ecosystems in recent years. An ecosystem involves a range of solution providers working together in a connected network that brings collective advantage and mutual value to end-users, platform providers, and participants.

Businesses can now provide beyond their product, offering a holistic experience for their customers. This is one of the key strategies used by digital platform giants such as Apple and Alibaba in their rise to market dominance.

Also Read: How getting digital transformation right can help businesses get through a pandemic

While some argue that not all digital platforms should grow into an ecosystem, it is crucial to understand how the framework value-adds. Although most known ecosystems are big and global, digital ecosystems can be small, local, or even industry-specific. Service providers such as Grab have evolved from a ride-hailing service to a digital powerhouse by constantly revamping and growing its digital ecosystem.

The super-app’s hyperlocal business strategy allows it to build its ecosystem based on the respective nation, making it a one-stop service provider for everyday consumer needs. The increasing number of participants on the Grab ecosystem indefinitely attracts more end-users to the platform, making it essential for smartphone users in the countries they operate.

The key to establishing and maintaining an effective digital ecosystem would be the partnerships forged. With the digital economy constantly evolving, it is important to identify gaps in the service provided and engage in strategic partnerships that benefit both the platform and the end-users. A collaborative platform that encourages innovative co-development can potentially birth the new generation of digital solutions.

The digital space is filled with opportunities to learn and evolve. With change being the only constant in this pandemic-driven atmosphere, it is important that solution providers identify gaps in their service, and strive to constantly improvise the platform and services offered to best suit the needs of the end-users. In this way, we will not only be able to keep up with technological advancements but one day is able to drive a major technological revolution.

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Indonesia’s e-commerce enabler SIRCLO raises US$6M Series B from East VC, Sinar Mas, others; The firm acquired 12M new users as stringent social distancing measures were on amidst the COVID-19 pandemic; In May, SIRCLO merged with local competitor ICUBE. e27

Huawei launches its deep-tech startups accelerator in Singapore; ‘The Spark’ will offer cloud credits of up to US$125K, AI development fund of up to US$100K to each startup; The Chinese tech giant will invest ‘millions of dollars’ to support deep-tech startups focusing on 5G, AI, analytics, IoT, mobile edge computing, as well as mobile and SaaS apps. TechInAsia

Singapore e-commerce firm Intrepid Group raises pre-Series B co-led by Thakral, Sun SEA Capital; The funding will be used to help brands and SMEs “accelerate their growth” on e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Shopee across SEA; Besides Singapore, Intrepid also has ops in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong. Business Times

ASX-listed ‘buy-now, pay-later’ company Afterpay acquires Indonesian startup EmpatKali; The Jakarta-based startup also runs a similar product wherein it allows consumers to shop and pay in four equal instalments with no interest; It has 150 merchant partners in the archipelago. e27

Banks aren’t as stupid as enterprise AI and fintech entrepreneurs think; Critics complain about banks spending billions trying to be software companies; But overall, banks know their business way better than the entrepreneurial markets that seek to influence them; Banks have something most technologists don’t have enough of: domain expertise. TechCrunch

How shopping sites performed during COVID-19 in Singapore; Driven by high-value orders, Singaporeans spent an average of US$83 during the Jan-June 2020 period; The average basket size rose by 51% when compared to the same period last year, says an iPrice study. e27

How one Singaporean company came to dominate the SEO industry; Ahrefs has one of the most influential blogs in the industry, where they focus on producing high quality content in educating on SEO matters; Ahrefs prides itself on being king of backlinks and claims to have the fastest backlink crawler in the industry. Fintech News

Non-profit organisation ‘Women in Identity’ launches Singapore chapter; The chapter will contribute greatly to ensuring that women are right up there in the vanguard of those with digital identity, says Minister Indranee Rajah; It’s important to attract girls to STEM from an early age by actively guiding them when they make choices, like the combination of subjects to take in secondary schools and the careers to pursue. The Straits Times

Vast untapped e-commerce and tech employment potential in the Philippines, says Michael Page; There is interest in doing business in the Philippines due to the very strong talent here; Manufacturing is a major growth area, and the consumer market, despite the lockdown and other challenges, has remained robust; This includes retail, F&B and FMCG. HRAsia

Indonesia’s Communication, IT ministry launches startup accelerator; Named ‘Startup Studio’, it targets angel to pre-Series A stage startups; The programme will run for 3 months with intensive coaching and mentoring every week​; This will be the third project initiated by the ministry after Gerakan Nasional 1000 Startup Digital in 2016 and Nexticorn in 2017. e27

Transcelestial aims to help telcos roll out 5G rapidly and cost effectively in SEA; In Singapore, the government has chosen to build a 5G standalone network but it means a huge amount of infra costs (towers and fibres); Transcelestial’s network device Centauri helps offset this massive cost and time. e27

Malaysia developing national digital infra plan (JENDELA) to improve digital communications, says PM; JENDELA will lay the foundation for high-quality broadband coverage facilities as well as prepare the country for the transition towards 5G tech; It will also involve the phasing out of 3G networks in stages until the end of 2021 for the consolidation of 4G networks and to strengthen the foundations of 5G ones. Bernama

8 most important questions to ask in your search for the right co-founder; It’s very important to know what each other’s motivations are before you commit yourself and spend 10-12 hours per day with a group of people for at least 3-5 years; There is typically a ‘honeymoon period’ of 12-18 months where everything seems to be fine. e27

Best practices to improve the e-commerce checkout process; The rise of platforms such as Amazon and Etsy has changed the digital shopping experience and elevated the expectations of consumers; As consumer expectations continue to rise, companies of all sizes are exploring how to improve the convenience and safety of their checkout process. Ecommerce Times

Adapt to survive: Why Singapore and the world need to reinvent the old order; As Singaporean businesses seek to orient themselves within the new normal, digital adoption should be top of the agenda for decision-makers and business leaders; In particular, how to embed emerging tech into their biz to streamline ops, reduce costs, and better manage info. e27

Parcel delivery major Kerry Express Thailand files for IPO in e-commerce boom; It will offer as many as 300M new shares, equivalent to 17.2% of its total issued shares after the IPO; The firm says it has 15K+ service centres with 1.2K+ distribution hubs, operates 25K+ delivery service vehicles in Thailand. Nikkei Asia Review

Femtech poised for growth beyond fertility; Last year, the global market for female-focused health products generated US$820.6M and is estimated to reach at least US$3B by the end of 2030; Femtech posted US$592.1M in VC investment in 2019, slightly down on 2018’s US$620.3 million. TechCrunch

How the pandemic can accelerate gender balance in the digital workforce; A UNDP study finds that 90% of people are biased against women and 40%+ believe men make better biz executives; The lack of significant gender diversity can mean lack of diversity in the biz thought-process and risk of pattern repetition where the status-quo is fundamentally unchallenged and expectations boxed in. PhocusWire

Google, Line and BEC veteran sets up a venture to upskill Thai workforce; Ariya Banomyong’s venture ‘Transformational’ aims to assist corporations in their pursuit of digital transformation; He claims the company has expertise in biz strategies, digital commerce and marketing, tech architecture, data analytics, Machine Learning. Bangkok Post

Digital economy continues growth momentum; As per Lazada Malaysia, the way consumers shop and pay for their purchases is evolving at a great pace; The number of new sellers on the e-commerce platform grew by more than 200% in H1; noted that Malaysians are also increasingly looking towards online solutions for their everyday needs. Bernama

Why 5G is racing ahead in Asia; APAC is the largest region for 5G adoption with 1.14B subscribers, accounting for 65% of global 5G subscriptions by 2024, according GlobalData; With more than half of all Internet users (a majority of whom only use mobile devices), it’s likely that a majority of tomorrow’s digital tools will come from the region and those mobile-first habits, says JLL’s Jordan Kostelac. JLL

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                     From Intrepid Group’s Series A investment signing event (File photo)

Intrepid Group, a Singapore-based e-commerce services provider, has raised an undisclosed sum in pre-Series B financing, co-led by SGX-listed Thakral Corporation, and existing investor Sun SEA Capital (a VC firm backed by Sunway Group).

This round comes less than 10 months after the company received Series A funding led by Kairous Capital.

Founded by co-founders of Lazada, Intrepid Group offers both enterprise-grade SaaS and end-to-end e-commerce management to brands and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to accelerate their growth on platforms such as Lazada and Shopee.

Also Read: How shopping sites performed during COVID-19 in Singapore

The firm claims its monthly revenue grew four times year-on-year with a rapid expansion of its geographical footprint across Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and more recently Malaysia.

Currently, it is serving more than 50 brands across the region (including HP, 3M, Colgate, P&G, Kiehl’s, Luxottica & Xiaomi).

In Q2 2020, Intrepid launched the latest version of its multi-channel management SaaS product ‘PowerSell’. The software is now used by close to 10,000 brands and SMEs with almost one million orders processed every week, it further claimed.

“With COVID-19, businesses have come to the conclusion that digitisation is no longer a nice-to-have but an absolute must. For the retail industry, e-commerce has become a top priority — both for international brands and SMEs. We are convinced we have a big role to play in this shift – both via our e-commerce services for brands and via our SaaS PowerSell,” said Charles Debonneuil, CEO of Intrepid Group and former CMO and Co-founder of Lazada Group.

Thakral’s Group CEO and Executive Director, Inderbethal Singh Thakral, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the enormous growth potential for e-commerce in Asia. Southeast Asian e-commerce, while still small relative to China, is growing very fast: according to a 2019 Google Temasek study, Southeast Asian e-commerce volumes have multiplied by 10 between 2015 and today, and are expected to more than triple again by 2025, which will offer significant business opportunities.”

Also Read: Adapt to survive: Why Singapore and the world need to reinvent the old order

Thakral’s core business comprises a real estate investment portfolio in Australia, Japan and Singapore. Its other investments include the management and marketing of leading beauty, wellness and lifestyle brands in China, Southeast Asia and India. It also operates an e-commerce retail platform for at-home beauty devices in China.

Last week, Indonesian e-commerce enabler SIRCLO closed a US$6 million Series B funding from a host of investors, including East Ventures, OCBC NISP Ventura, Skystar Capital, Sinar Mas Land.

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Grab driver in Southeast Asia

Grab announces expansion of hawker pilot programme to 16 locations

The story: Today, Grab announced that it has expanded its Hawker Centre 2.0 pilot programme to 16 additional locations throughout Singapore in a press statement. A total of 199 participants are expected for the programme.

What is Hawker Centre 2.0?: Hawker Centre 2.0 is a pilot programme that supports Singaporean hawkers to digitise their stalls after the impact of COVID-19.

More about this programme: The initiative will imitate the experience of customers when they visit a hawker centre by delivering the same food to users at home.

“Hawkers are an integral part of the Singapore social fabric. However, the pandemic has pushed many to kickstart their digital journeys, despite them lacking the know-how or the right resources in optimising their business models. With Hawker Centre 2.0, we want to play our part in preserving this unique culture of Singapore by seeking a viable model for these stall owners to sell online,” said Yee Wee Tang, Managing Director, Grab Singapore.

Also Read: Dropee partners Grab financial for SME business financing product

Indian edutech startup DataTrained partners IBM to offer machine learning courses

The story: Bangalore-based edutech startup DataTrains has partnered with IBM to offer courses in data science, machine learning, and neural networks in India, according to Economic Times.

More about the story: The 10-month learning programme will focus on Data Science essentials such as Python, R, and deep learning. Students will be taught via live online sessions, pre-recorded videos, quizzes and assignments.

More about DataTrained: Founded by Jatin Juneja the platform offers 11 months certificate course in data science with an assurance of 100 per cent placement.

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Image Credit: Grab

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Singapore-based mobile games publisher, Potato Play, announced today that it has raised US$1.75 million in a seed funding round led by Beenext.

Play Ventures, which invested US$500,00 in the gaming startup’s pre-seed in January, besides Atlas Ventures, also participated in the latest round.

The startup plans to use the funds to scale its sourcing and marketing operations, as well as to invest in technology assets.

“The hyper-casual trend has peaked. Hybrid-casual games that combine the simple mechanics of hyper-casuals with the deeper monetisation and long-term retention of hardcore games are the next big wave,” said Potato Play CEO Vincent Low.

Also Read: How this entrepreneur is stepping up the game for gaming tech e-commerce

“Asian game developers, with decades of experience in hardcore games, and the ability to execute and iterate quickly on trends, are an ideal fit to innovate in the hybrid-casual space. We use proven metrics and markers to identify these high potential games early on and offer win-win deals to developers to publish and scale them. With this seed round, we will be limitless in what we can achieve for developers,” he added.

Potato Play helps mobile games — a US$68.5-billion global business –created by Asian developers to take their titles to global markets. Through its “unique” game-sourcing and evaluation process, and an embedded platform SDK, marketing and monetisation capabilities, the startup has brought over 20 games to market.

The startup claims its games have been downloaded 15 million times, and includes hits like Merge Quest, Merge Rush Z, Crossing Gaps and Pocket Racing.

Beenext is an early-stage focus venture capital firm managed by serial tech entrepreneurs since 2015. The partners have hands-on capabilities and have been focusing on assisting founders in over 180 early-stage tech startups.

The VC firm aims to establish a platform of the founders, by the founders and for the founders across the globe primarily in India, South East Asia, and Japan with their own operational experiences, network and perspectives.

Also Read: What are the key trends in mobile gaming ads in Southeast Asia?

Two months back, Beenext closed a US$110 million fund which aims to empower early-stage startups and founders in India and Southeast Asia.

Play Ventures is an early-stage gaming VC firm with offices in Singapore and Helsinki. It invests globally in pre-seed and seed-stage gaming startups and focuses on free-to-play mobile and PC opportunities as well as gaming services startups.

Atlas Ventures is an early-stage VC firm based in Singapore looking to invest in tech and tech-enabled businesses operating within fast-growing and overlooked markets in APAC. The fund’s area of focus currently covers interactive media, privacy & security, and B2B SaaS & enterprise tech.

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Image Credit: Potato Play

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Carmen Yuen, Partner, Vertex Ventures India & SEA

Recently, we hosted Carmen Yuen of Vertex Ventures SEA & India in our Meet the VC webinar series to know more about their operations and investment philosophy in India and SEA.

For early-stage startups

• “Always start the conversation and keep us posted.  A cold email is not ideal, and the VC scene is not so big, so try to reach us through your contacts.  But vision is not good enough … having vision but no action is an illusion.”

Impact of the crisis

• The evaluation process of startups has been similar to the pre-COVID-19 days. But now it is even more apparent that startups have to be nimble, watch their cash flow, scale (not at all cost), and the founder has to be talking to investors, investors, and investors.
• Advice for startups: Be creative in retention and hiring, focus on customers, and focus on cashflow.

A new hope

• Looking to the future, Yuen said: “For us, we are looking at what opportunities there are as a result of COVID-19. Several things are worth considering:  Agritech, given food security is paramount for every country … when COVID-19 happened, the supply chain was disrupted.  Then, of course, healthcare as people are wary of going to clinics/ hospitals.  Then there are e-learning opportunities as people are already getting the hang of Zooms, Google Hangouts, House Party… [the question is] how can we use the same platforms to enhance learning.”

Learn more about how they helped their portfolio companies survive and their investment strategy for the upcoming months via the webinar recording

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The COVID-19 pandemic is a defining moment in our times, and its global disruptions will inspire innovation across industries as we enter a post-COVID-19 world.

We are curious about the impact the pandemic would have on the global healthcare sector and the consequent impact on the Southeast Asian ecosystem.

This article will examine the role digitalisation has played in the healthcare space, specifically in relation to information sources, digital health experiences, and the role of data in a public health crisis.

We now have access to a range of digital information sources where we may hear about major global developments, especially in the COVID-19 crisis. However, this profusion of news sources creates the risk of misinformation, especially in a public health context.

At the same time, we see a marked increase in digital health adoption, given that COVID-19 makes physical consultations difficult. This opens up new opportunities and challenges, including preparing clinicians to be effective online care providers.

Finally, the fight against COVID-19 would not be possible without digital tools and timely data sharing. Moving forward, the successful management of such a crisis would require data collection by the government, which would need to be explained clearly. Creating an atmosphere of trust where data can be volunteered and shared safely is a challenge for all health authorities.

Grappling with health information sources

​One of the most prominent ways we all experience the shift due to the digitalisation in healthcare is in the way we receive public health information. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, people relied on official channels of communication, such as broadcast media and newspapers.

Also Read: How technology and healthcare can work together in a post-pandemic world

In contrast, consumers now have access to a variety of information sources that can provide near real-time developments of the pandemic. ​

An ongoing study by the National Centre of Infectious Diseases (NCID) on the Singapore population’s knowledge, risk perception, and behaviour during the COVID-19 outbreak revealed that social media has been cited as the preferred source of information on the outbreak for the public. About 78 per cent of respondents who recirculated news about COVID-19 did so on messaging platforms, while 35 per cent shared the information on social media and about 42 per cent did so by word of mouth.

The wide plethora of news sources, especially user-generated sources such as social media, increase the risk of misinformation, which, in a public health context, can cause real physical harm. The new challenge for healthcare authorities and the public is the need to verify and fact-check information.

To combat the threat of misinformation, the Singapore government has taken the initiative to use new channels to publish authoritative information on COVID-19. More than 90 per cent of the respondents in the aforementioned NCID study trusted information from official government sources. This corroborates the idea that the perceived credibility of health authorities is instrumental in keeping citizens reliably informed even amidst a profusion of information sources.

The increased access to digital sources of information is also accompanied by increased adoption of online health platforms, where patients can engage with clinicians remotely.

Towards a more personalised healthcare experience

With COVID-19 halting physical consultations, the point of care for most consumers has shifted to the digital realm. Digital Health tools are enabling physicians to treat patients from safe distances while providing new efficiencies to the healthcare system. ​

According to Bain Telemedicine, digital health platforms in Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia have gained a surge of activity due to various stay home measures. These digital health tools have increased the capacity of the healthcare system while keeping the clinician-patient interaction safe.

Startups such as MyDoc and Doctor Anywhere have registered a 150 per cent average increase in their respective user bases in 2020. Ping An Good Doctor announced in March that its healthcare venture with ride-hailing firm Grab plans to hire hundreds of doctors in Indonesia given that the GrabHealth platform conducts 10,000 consultations daily compared to 5,000-6,000 per day prior to the outbreak.

A surge in the adoption of digital health tools is not a surprise in these times, but it is clear that they need to be made a mainstream fixture of healthcare services to be prepared for the future. According to Oliver Wyman, enhancing the quality of services provided to consumers, and designing more personalised experiences for them is key to making sure that Digital Health is here to stay.

Speaking at Healthcare Innovation in Times of COVID-19 – a webinar hosted by Catalyst, Dr Tan Min Han, CEO of Lucence Diagnostics, noted that there are opportunities in the need for developing skill-sets for clinicians to be certified for consultations and telemedicine procedures.

When we consider users who are not necessarily early adopters of digital technologies but might nevertheless need to access digital health services, the question of credibility becomes key. There is a need for health service providers to work closely with regulatory bodies to enhance the qualification systems used to assure users of the credibility of such platforms.

Also Read: What healthcare transformation in Asia will look like in 2020

Apart from the growth of telemedicine, there is a growing trend around leveraging technologies available in most smartphones to empower consumers with digital health functions such as stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, and eye tests. This would enhance the abilities of clinicians to provide more robust remote consultations to consumers.

Looking to the future, we see opportunities for digital health tools to use IoT-enabled tools to integrate a patients’ medical history and lifestyle into their service delivery, to enhance their medical efficacy. Point-of-care test kits with a suite of capabilities might become the norm for households, with developments such as 19Labs Gale QKit which is a suite of take-home sensors that facilitate telehealth lifestyle monitoring by a medical professional6.

The ability to share data with clinicians across digital channels helps provide better care and build a more robust health ecosystem.

The challenge of data collection and sharing

​The pandemic has put a spotlight on the role of surveillance within the realm of public health, raising difficult questions about the trade-off between the citizens’ right to privacy and the need to keep track of people for the sake of public health.

Many countries have quickly implemented various forms of geo-tracking to pin-point and alert communities about infection clusters. Prof Henry Ho, Director of the MedTech Office Singhealth, highlighted that the scale of the COVID-19 outbreak and the pace of its transmission is unique, and that data and digital tools are essential for healthcare authorities to manage it.

Various governing organisations are attempting to navigate these privacy concerns while providing data access to healthcare providers. One such example is the Trusted Data Sharing Framework by Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). This framework aims to address these concerns by offering common data-sharing principles to help organisations develop baseline practices.

IMDA has stated that “the intent of the framework is that, with stronger safeguards and clarity on regulatory compliance, consumers will be more ready to share their data and consequently benefit from more personalised goods and services”. ​

Data is instrumental in the fight against a pandemic and while authorities strive to make responsible use of it, privacy concerns still make this a delicate balancing act.

Having introduced new constraints in our lives, COVID-19 has created the conditions that warrant accelerated online health innovation across the world, and as such may inspire never-before-seen progress in the health space.

We believe we will see digital health grow tremendously in the near future, not only in the realm of consultation advisory models, but also will play an important role in supporting multiple dimensions of our social health: through more personalised monitoring of patient lifestyles, and in our communities.

That having been said, we need to take a balanced view of both the opportunities and the challenges that come with digital healthcare innovation. We require a continued emphasis on quality, efficacy, and credibility.

As we work toward expanding the scope and reach of digital health platforms, it is important to consider people who do not have access to the internet or to digital technologies. How might we innovate to enable them to access the healthcare they need, and ensure that no one is left behind? ​

We at Padang & Co support UN SDG 3 – Good Health & Well-being – and are committed to supporting a growing community of health and medtech startup ecosystem in Singapore through our specialist innovation space, Catalyst. We hope to continue to share with you our views on innovation in the digital health space.

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Human beings have always shared a penchant for the idiosyncratic. The appeal of the exclusive and tailor-made is one that has always captivated our minds. The 21^st century can be aptly dubbed as the era of customisation; wherein countless companies are busy trying to supersede one another in terms of capturing the attention of customers.

This is being done through their gamut of customised products and services that seek to satiate the customer’s appetite for enhanced satisfaction tailored to his every need at the moment.

One size doesn’t fit all

The old adage, ‘one size fits all’ no longer seems to fit the bill as the advancements in both production technologies along with the evolving individual perception has given way to the rise of the custom-made. Companies across Asia that were primarily a transaction-driven hub, are now redefining the way business is conducted and dealt with.

There is no longer a lineage to a transaction alone. It’s personalised scalable options that are the new norm and is being largely driven by the customer’s need for instant gratification. Such specialised and custom-defined solutions for their clients to target their niche audience is scaling up exponentially than ever before.

These companies are re-engineering their operations and technology that drives these operations so as to achieve the following business objectives for their clientele who are not limited to the same span of geography that they operate from:

• Cost savings – operations
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Increased productivity – basis the technology support rendered
• Shortened time gap – between need and fulfilment

Also Read: 4 stage personalisation at scale and how to leverage technology for a harmonious sales cycle

Need for optimised solutions

It is becoming increasingly essential for companies, irrespective of their segment to provide personalised content, experiences, and recommendations to be successful in the contemporary business world. For that, brands must optimise data-centric stratagems and know-how to get inside the minds of their customer prospects and deliver services that are relevant to what they yearn most.

Personalised services based on the in-depth scrutiny of customer needs and preferences remain key for companies to excel in their fields. Such services permit companies to plunge deep into the various predilections harboured by the customer segments so as to offer them precisely targeted messages, services, or products.

Effects on businesses

As per the research conducted by Ascend USA, of all the companies that insist on delivering data-driven personalised services to their customers, 64 per cent complied with enhancing customer experience as the principal objective of their strategy.

Moreover, as 44 per cent concentrated on amplifying customer engagement, 43 per cent were dedicated to increasing one’s conversion rates, while 26 per cent sought to improve product offerings and prices.

Also Read: Personalisation is the key to connect with customers

The aforementioned objectives fixed by these personalised customer-centric companies are party to their own set of hurdles as over 44 per cent of them faced significant obstacles in their bid to enhance the customer experience. Almost 42 per cent confessed that increasing customer engagement was a major challenge, whereas 41 per cent swore that improving the quality of the utilised data seemed a major test.

The rise of digital pathways has ensured that vast surfeits of novel data-types are being used to create profound experiences for the customers.

Website activity, as revealed by over 55 per cent marketing influencers happens to be the most vital form of marketing data that is employed for rendering personalised services followed by a transactional activity which was regarded by 47 per cent marketers as the second-most essential data-type, according to Ascend.

Another research by Epilson confirmed the various customer sentiments across different industries regarding personalized consumer experience. For example, over 90 per cent of the respondents stated they prefer buying things from grocery/drug store websites/apps that offered personalized experiences in contrast to the fact that only 715 of these online facilities provided personalized buyer services.

Offering personalised and tailor-made services and products goes a long way in cementing a solid brand loyalty with customers. There are numerous studies that are indicative of the fact that more than 44 per cent customers would transition to a company’s product/service if it held the promise of extending personalised services.

This is highly instrumental towards increasing consumer-appreciation, customer-repetition, the overall sales, and the resultant market goodwill which directly leads to a greater service or product valuation of the brand.

Benefits that are harvested

Companies that are devoted to extending immersive and personalised customer experiences manage to simultaneously gather the advantages of personalised consumer communication as well as witnessing improved customer engagement. This is akin to shooting two birds with a single arrow and something towards which contemporary businesses greatly aspire.

Also Read: Customer is not always the king, says Tokopedia’s customer engagement expert

The emergence of new advanced cutting-edge technologies in AI and Machine Language has made the task of gauging customer preference somewhat simpler. Through the combination of state of the art analytics and data sciences, companies are able to comprehend the various fluctuations and shifts in customer-consciousness.

The rise of an informed and well-acquainted customer who is aware of his various wants and requirements has catalysed the dawn of various tech-driven companies that exclusively dabble in extending only those sets of services that are in perfect confluence with the dynamic and tailored needs of the consumer.

As companies seek to offer the chosen portfolio of prescribed and personalised service experiences to their clientele, they need to be careful and steer clear of advancing consumer tedium through product monotony and service redundancy. By utilising the latest advancements in technology and innovation, the companies should focus all their operational might in presenting only that which the customer craves.

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The post One size doesn’t fit all: Why consumer personalisation is a must for all businesses appeared first on e27.

With COVID-19 affecting virtually every aspect of human life — from our lifestyles, to consumer behaviours, to labour practices — it is easy to overlook exactly how people are mentally coping given everything that is going on.

The World Health Organization (WHO) explained that because of the significant changes to our daily lives caused by stricter movement regulations being imposed by governments around the world on top of our individual fears of contracting the virus, it is perfectly normal to experience bouts of stress and anxiety during today’s precarious times.

This, however, isn’t an entirely new phenomenon. While the pandemic has amplified such experiences, many people have had to deal with different forms of stress long before COVID-19. In fact, one of the most pertinent forms of stress is the kind that is experienced at work. This is merely magnified by work-from-home arrangement that is now highly encouraged by many offices where people are unable to compartmentalise domestic leisure from the stresses of work.

Also read: Workbean: Empowering the workplace in the time of COVID-19

Another WHO study noted that a healthy working environment is one that does not only reject harmful conditions but also promotes complete physical, mental, and social well-being among employees.

It is through this lens that Dr. Ian Ng, Founder and CEO of VITA, decided to come up with a mobile personal health record which provides detailed health information and insights with easy to understand visualisation tools that will help assess mental health through people’s biological stress scores combined with psychological assessment tools.

Empowering employees’ overall well-being

Based in Malaysia, VITA by Zing Healthcare provides tech-enabled tools to monitor and measure health data at the workplace and offer insights into personal and corporate health data to keep track of health policies and assist in formulating a customised health programme.

At its core, VITA’s unique technology provides more insight into the unknown and undocumented world of stress at the workplace.

“There are numerous studies linking stress to breakdowns in physical health but it is still mostly vague associations. We want to gather as much data as possible to understand all the elements which make up work stress and how it positively and negatively affects the human body,” explained Ng, emphasising that his profession as an occupational health doctor is the driving factor to why he created this tool.

He added, “[I want to] help organisations understand more about the stresses afflicting their employees and how to start improving work conditions using data-driven insights.”

Also read: Adapt to survive: Why Singapore and the world need to reinvent the old order

When under a lot of stress, some people may find it hard to concentrate, make decisions, and feel confident about their performance at work. As the age-old saying goes, “happy people are productive people” — meaning, work-related stress isn’t only detrimental to the overall well-being of an employee, but it also affects a company’s performance.

It is thus of paramount importance that companies put a premium on this aspect of work culture: by addressing problems in employees’ well-being using data-driven solutions that seek to accommodate the best interest of all stakeholders, companies stand to gain not only a happier and healthier workforce, but also a productive one.

Technology to address human needs

“Healthcare definitely has yet to see rapid digitalisation advances as it is highly regulated and customised to every healthcare system. In order for effective uptake by the end consumers, all healthcare providers need to adopt and also benefit from digitalisation of healthcare data,” Ng argued, explaining the fundamental role of technology in how we can improve and develop healthcare frameworks that best address issues in the workplace.

Moreover, he explained that as we get more information about stress and physical health, we can make the associations required to create AI to predict disease patterns and provide early warning systems to help with the patient’s motivation and decision-making for their own future health.

“We as a company in the digital health space are ready to assimilate into and work together with current healthcare systems and create more value by making the data relevant to the consumer. It’s not just about benefiting the corporates by saving insurance premiums and increasing productivity, the final target audience who are the employees themselves have to benefit from living healthier and happier with better transparency of data,” Ng added.

Also read: PouchNATION is changing the game in crowd management tech

One particular challenge that VITA foresees is resistance from healthcare providers who have yet to digitise their business as well as hospitals and clinics who are reluctant to let the patient health information freely transfer from one institution to another.

The reason for this, Ng argued, is due to fear of losing their patients/customers to the competition. At the end of the day, the objective is to allow patients to take back control of their own health data as they are the ones who will ultimately determine the outcome of their own health.

A crucial thing to surmise given these challenges is that when it comes to matters of health and safety, healthcare providers must step aside and allow people to make the best decisions for their own well-being based on transparent information and data-driven solutions — something that VITA advocates for.

Moving forward, what’s next for VITA?

Down the road, VITA hopes to work with more corporate customers to unlock the hidden metrics of stress at various workplaces. They also seek to expand their business intelligence tool based on the feedback gained from their current pool of customers, especially in terms of stress and how it affects the workplace.

In order to address challenges with healthcare providers and hospitals being stingy with health-related information, Ng said, “we do not exclusively work with any single healthcare provider and remain agnostic as a platform to allow this exchange of information to take place. Anyone who wants to join is very welcome to work with us to facilitate this freedom of data exchange.”

VITA has also recently signed up for an e27 Pro membership, allowing them to access tools, actionable insights, and fundraising opportunities that can help them push their plans further.

Ng expressed, “e27 Pro has allowed us to connect with startups, media, and investors from beyond our own home country of Malaysia and keeps us connected to the greater ecosystem out there. Our end goal is also to be part of a larger ecosystem instead of just residing in our own country.”

This exciting new development enables VITA to explore scaling opportunities that will allow them to grow not just their company but also their capacity to help out more people in the region. “We managed to make more connections than any other equivalent programme in our own country. We also utilised the Zendesk promo to help us develop our product to have a better CRM system to serve our customers,” Ng continued.

With these new developments laying the groundwork for VITA’s future successes, there is no telling how far their team can go in building a better world for employees everywhere.

The post How VITA by Zing Healthcare empowers employee well-being through technology appeared first on e27.

Apart from social media sharing, having a comments box at the end of an article is one of the most common features to be found on various online media platforms. However, despite its popularity, the comments box is not perfect.

In fact, American tech publishing platform HackerNoon listed down three points why it has “fallen short”: There is a high barrier for readers to leave a thoughtful comment with only the most popular stories getting meaningful feedback; readers are forced to comment on the story as a whole, leading to generalised comments such as “nice story”; and finally, only readers that read the story to the finish are able to react –and many just do not go that far.

This is why HackerNoon introduced its newest feature: Inline emoji reactions.

The new feature enables readers to respond to individual sections of content with an emoji reaction. There are light grey bars next to each section; if readers hover over the bar, they will see a range of emojis to pick from, to express their thoughts and feelings about that particular section.

If a section is popular –meaning having a high number of reactions– there will be more bars and its colours will change from yellow to green to red as the activity increases. The reaction then gets aggregated and the total number will be visible at the top of the story.

“Readers now have a low-friction tool to give writers specific feedback on their words. This creates a feedback loop that writers can learn from and improve their content over time,” HackerNoon CPO Dane Lyons comments on the feature.

In this third episode of our deep dive series, Lyons and CEO David Smooke explain to e27 the process behind developing features such as this one.

Also Read: 3 mistakes early stage startups in Singapore make in product development

Topics covered in this episode:

– Product Development 101: Principles and process
– Customer matters, but they are not your product manager
– The next steps
– The mission for a better internet

Product Development 101: Principles and process

As in many tech companies, the product development process at HackerNoon begins with understanding customers’ pain points. To achieve this, every member of the team need to have a unified mindset.

“Everyone on the Hacker Noon product team is a writer in addition to their usual duties as a designer of infrastructure and product. This is a concept we borrowed from the Marine Corps where ‘every Marine is a rifleman’,” explains Lyons.

Calling this concept a “huge advantage”, Lyons further elaborates that this concept enables team members to identify problems as a user. Yet, on the other hand, they have the ability to create the solutions, being a developer of the platform itself.

In the context of the inline emoji reaction feature, the development stems from the team members frustration in getting the feedback they need to improve their writings.

“What writers and readers really need is a very low friction tool for giving better feedback. Giving an emoji next to a paragraph is meaningful. If nothing else, it gives writers much more targeted agreement or disagreement signals,” Lyons stresses.

Also Read: A multi-disciplinary approach to product development requires collaboration

Adding to this explanation, Smooke gives insight into how the team starts working on the development of a new feature.

“Everything we put time and resources into has to tie back to our three core metrics: time reading, words published, and money made. For the most part, we don’t assign projects or set deadlines. I trust our team to pick projects that they think will move our core metrics,” he says.

“Also in every weekly product meeting, we end with an advocacy session. Anyone in the company can attend and spend a few minutes advocating for a function that should be moved up the product funnel. We talk out the expected input and potential output,” he continues.

For this feature, Smooke says that the metrics that they are focussing on are the number of people who give an emoji, aggregate emojis given, and average site session time.

“Usage determines a product’s value. Every function has its own purpose. New functions should have a predetermined metric that you are trying to move. But you should also keep an eye on what other metrics change,” he elaborates.

He adds, “Logistically, we have a #product-results channel to foster discussion. We gather and monitor data, mostly from Google Analytics, Firebase, Vercel, Algolia, Sentry and internal tools. We A/B test a good bit. But also, it is timely (and a nice rush) to just ship it straight to production. At Hacker Noon, we also invested in a sound dev environment, so it’s really easy to rollback changes if break something significant.”

Customer matters, but they are not your product manager

But even this process possesses its own challenges. Lyons says that one of them is dealing with consensus; while the team members might agree about the problem that they want to solve, there are often different ways to approach.

“I think we’ve done a great job of not allowing that friction to get in the way of progress. One strategy is to not get too caught up delivering the ‘perfect solution.’ It’s much better to deliver a ‘viable solution,’ then learn and iterate. At each step, the solution typically gets a little better and the final implementation sort of works itself out,” Lyon says.

Also Read: How a Japanese initiative backed by local government is accelerating product development in Southeast Asia

He gives the example of deciding how granular to get with emoji reactions.

“There is an ongoing debate whether to allow readers to react at the paragraph-level or at the word-level. We decided to start by allowing reactions at the paragraph-level because it was a far easier implementation. But this debate inspired us to build a flexible data schema that will allow us to explore word-level reactions in the near future,” he explains.

Now, what is the role of customer feedback in this process?

Lyons admits this one can be tricky, as it can trap product developers into developing just whatever the customers want, without any further consideration.

“Running around like a madman chasing competing interests is just not an effective strategy for building a product. You’ve really got to take in customer feedback as a whole and really internalise what people are asking for before taking action,” he says.

“Users often ask for band-aid solutions to product frictions. When a user asks for a feature, don’t immediately jump to thinking about how to go about implementing it. Instead, really invest time thinking about the underlying problem. This often leads to very different and much more effective solutions,” he continues.

Left to right: CEO David Smooke, COO Linh Dao Smooke, CPO Dane Lyons

The next steps

When being asked about the lessons learned from the process of developing the inline emoji reactions feature, Smooke says that it is still too early to tell.

But even as they launched the early version of the features, the team already prepares the next updates in the pipeline. For example, they want to be able to go as far as enabling word-level reactions and adding comments in addition to emojis.

There will also be greater ties to inline emoji reactions to an article’s performance.

Also Read: New in e27 Jobs, 5 Product Development roles with startups in Singapore

“As we get stories with more reactions, we’ll start using reactions as a quality signal to sort stories. This could happen anywhere you see a list of stories,” Lyons begins.

“Some writers might want to configure which emojis are available for reader reactions. Maybe some writers feel cyberbullied on social media and just don’t want to deal with negative reaction options. Other writers might want to lean in and embrace critical feedback,” he continues.

“A few months ago, we prototyped a Hacker Noon leaderboard based on comments. We’d like to iterate on the design sort stories by the number of reactions received over the last seven days … When a story hits a reaction milestone, we want to celebrate that achievement with an email and/or a tweet. When readers give a story an emoji, it’s an implicit endorsement. We think those endorsements should display on the reader profile,” Lyons closes.

The mission for a better internet

Founded in 2016 by David Smooke and Linh Dao Smooke, HackerNoon is a platform that is built for technologists to read, write, and publish content. It has an “open and international community” of more 12,000 contributing writers and more than four million monthly readers.

In introducing the inline emoji reaction feature, the company has received a grant from Mozilla’s Fix the Internet incubator programme. Starting in July, the eight-week programme began in July with the new feature being launched just last Friday.

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Image Credit: Hacker Noon on Unsplash

The post How HackerNoon uses customer-centric approach to build meaningful new features on their platform appeared first on e27.