The Singapore-grown SaaS platform for parcel tracking also refreshed its brand and added new features

Parcel Perform, a Singaporean SaaS platform for  parcel tracking announced that it has expanded into Europe with its new office in Germany.

The company partnered with Coureon Logistics, a digital logistics provider for national and international shipping, to offer end-to-end e-commerce logistics management from parcel booking to parcel tracking across multiple carriers.

Along with the expansion, the company also introduces a new feature that includes enhanced real-time reporting to analyse logistics performance and an improved dashboard with more detailed insights and intuitive overview of parcel statuses.

The new feature, the company said, enables e-commerce businesses to improve customer experience, reduce customer service costs, and optimise logistics performance.

“Europe remains an extremely complex continent from a supply chain perspective with a multitude of logistics players across all markets. Our Parcel Perform platform aggregates and standardises logistics data, allowing e-commerce businesses to track, analyse, and predict parcel movements, enabling companies to make sense of their logistics data and better manage their operations.”

“The market for customer experience, personalisation, and tech-enabled logistics management is ripe for growth and we are well-positioned to help companies grow in this area,” says Dr. Arne Jeroschewski, Founder and CEO of Parcel Perform.

Also Read: SalesCandy’s expansion to 4 Southeast Asian countries prompts new innovations

Parcel Perform’s expansion into Europe comes on the heels of momentum for the company as it introduces a global brand refresh along with new logistics intelligence features on its platform.
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The energy industry is slanting towards a distributed yet connected future, pun intended

With the digital age comes numerous digital optimization opportunities, be it the Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) or blockchain technology.

Accordingly, utilities are increasing their digital initiatives to stay competitive in the developing energy landscape.

What’s more, the utility associations’ interest in blockchain is rising.

Blockchain’s potential for utilities

In the utility sector, blockchain technology has that potential to enable new methods to manage how energy is secured, distributed and accounted for.

Utilities are testing the potential of blockchain for creating new business models across the world based on micro-transactions enabled by blockchain’s ability to make trust between unknown peers.

These sort of disintermediated transactions develop the possibility of boosting the economic growth by leapfrogging the need to create large-scale centralised infrastructure for tracking commodity-related transaction or asset-related events and process payments.

One possible industry vision for the digital business is for utilities to be a provider of energy sharing economy platform. This platform can be managed by a single entity. In this centralized model platform, the provider is free to use a permission ledger-focused blockchain to track micro-energy transactions as well as orchestrate financial settlement.

This model will help be helpful in easier interaction with the digital distribution platform that is managed by IDNO (Independent Distributed Network Operator) that would validate the technical feasibility of proposed energy trades and calculate delivery charges depending on the congestion prices.

Managing energy exchanges between consumers and prosumers and creating cryptographically verified distributed P2P energy exchange platforms are among the most continuous use-cases assessed in a few early trials across the globe.

Various instances of blockchain’s use in the utility area have been accounted for up until this point.

Notwithstanding, those are in a trial and beginning period. Like this, they are for the most part utilised as signs of business potential or as technology feasibility pilots.

A look beyond the hype

Early adopters must have sensible assumptions regarding what can be picked up by setting out on energy-related blockchain activities. This can, in some cases, be a challenge, particularly as blockchain’s journey continues to be jumbled by hype, inflated expectations, miscomprehension, misinformation, and questionable prompt esteem.

Also Read: Today’s Top Tech News, June 03: BandLab acquires two brands and Parcel Perform lands in Europe

Both the tech media and merchants have fuelled off base assumptions that blockchain is as of now being effectively deployed across the enterprises and that a bigger change is in progress.

This isn’t the case!

Truth to be told, as indicated by Gartner’s 2018 CIO Survey, just a single per cent of CIOs showed any sort of blockchain adoption inside their associations, and just eight per cent of CIOs were in momentary arranging or dynamic experimentation with blockchain.

Even though blockchain’s adoption is in the beginning stage, there’s still a strong indication that there will ultimately be an assortment of approaches to using this technology.

With its promise of transforming transaction streams, better approaches of managing as well as operating distributed assets and operations, blockchain will continue to pick up gain traction in the utility sector.

But, utilities should oppose “fear of missing out” and must initially assess the disruptive nature of blockchain, evaluating whether this technology is promptly required for their organizations or not.

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Also, Philippine Digital Asset Exchange raises investment and Singapore Academy of Law launches accelerator programme

BandLab acquires British media brands NME and Uncut — [Press Release]

BandLab, a Singaporean company that wants to build a gigantic collective of music brands, announced today it has acquired NME and Uncut, two British media companies.

NME is a magazine that has been around since 1952 and grew into Britain’s most popular music magazine in the 1970s.

“We’ve been through a lot of change over the last three years, and it’s extremely exciting to have the opportunity to evolve further as a global media brand, while still maintaining the heart of what makes NME truly the NME. We’re here to be a fearless voice in the music scene, shining a light on the biggest acts and best emerging artists – all the things that have made us essential to pop culture for over nearly 70 years,” said NME editor, Charlotte Gunn in a statement.

Uncut is more niche and focusses exclusively on Rock & Roll.

Parcel Perform expands to Europe with launch in Germany — [e27]

Parcel Perform, a Singaporean SaaS platform for parcel tracking announced that it has expanded into Europe with its new office in Germany.

The company partnered with Coureon Logistics, a digital logistics provider for national and international shipping, to offer end-to-end e-commerce logistics management from parcel booking to parcel tracking across multiple carriers.

Along with the expansion, the company also introduces a new feature that includes enhanced real-time reporting to analyse logistics performance and an improved dashboard with more detailed insights and intuitive overview of parcel statuses.

BitMEX Ventures invests in Philippine Digital Asset Exchange — [BlockTribune]

BitMEX Ventures, a VC arm of HDR Global Trading, has invested an undisclosed amount into Philippine Digital Asset Exchange (PDAX), a crypto exchange.

The money will be used to improve the platform so that PDAX can handle a multitude of digital assets. The company is not limited to coins and facilitates trading of commodities, real estate equity and debt securities.

PDAX is licensed by the Philippines Central Bank.

Supahands raises Series A round — [Tech In Asia]

Supahands has closed a Series A financing round led by Patamar Capital and Cradle Seed Ventures, according to Tech In Asia.

Supahands is a Malaysian startup that helps companies integrate machine learning by providing micro-tasks to help facilitate the learning process. It is essentially helping companies outsource a painful data collection process.

Singapore Academy of Law launches accelerator programme — [Business Times]

The Singapore Academy of Law today opened applications for its new accelerator called GLIDE (Global Legal Innovation and Digital Entrepreneurship), according to the Business Times. The accelerator is part of a larger strategic shift within the academy to integrate innovation into the local legal industry.

The programme will last 90 days and is open to any startup with a minimal-viable-product and pilot.

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Photo by Ana Grave on Unsplash

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The world truly is an oyster for startup founders who are scaling their businesses in overseas markets, and Southeast Asia (SEA) is a hot destination

Home to a population of over 650 million people, Southeast Asia is often heralded as the next big economy. SEA has more than 330 million monthly active and young internet users, making the region incredibly receptive towards new technologies that can potentially disrupt the local ecosystem.

2018 recorded an abundance of investments with US$17.9B recorded funding raised by SEA-based startups and according to Google’s e-Conomy SEA 2018 report, SEA’s digital economy is forecasted to triple in size and reach US$240 billion over the next seven years.

Navigating Southeast Asia’s Diverse Backyard

A growing pipeline of customers and increased revenue generation are often motivations for startups to begin thinking about overseas expansion. The region’s receptiveness towards technology adoption and magnetism for burgeoning capital funding, make it attractive for startups from outside the region to consider expanding into SEA.

While the market opportunity certainly exists for startups to tap into, establishing a sustainable foothold in a new market has its own challenges, particularly in a region as diverse and dynamic as SEA.

Timing

Is the time right for expansion into an overseas market? Does your startup’s product or service solve an existing problem in the market(s) you intend to penetrate and have the necessary product features that are transferable to meet local customer needs? It is not uncommon for startups to have their business offerings validated in their domestic market, yet struggle to replicate this template in a foreign market where the same product-market fit may not exist.

In the case of SEA, a “one size fits all” business model does not translate well. By leveraging on the expertise of local partners in its expansion plans, Grab’s localisation strategy has seen the ride-hailing company grow to become the SEA powerhouse it is today.

Also Read: Boosting the patient management process, one AI step at a time

Grab addresses the needs of the local market by being culturally relevant – in Indonesia, they utilize bikes to cater to the locals’ preferred mode of transportation while in Singapore, they have begun offering pet-friendly rides to meet the needs of the high number of pet owners.

Understanding the local market and your competition

How do you stand against the other players that exist in the market of interest? A startup might have a few hundred thousand users in Australia or Hong Kong, but that level of traction may not be translated in Jakarta or Singapore.

Understanding the number and quality of existing players in the market puts you in a position to think if it is a worthwhile endeavor to invest into the market and the extent of resources required to gain sufficient market share. It is not to say brands offering similar services cannot co-exist; in fact, we see benefits to having healthy competition.

The e-wallet, travel booking and messaging platforms domains are good examples. However international startups need to be able to present a core competency that can deliver a unique set of the value proposition to the intended customers, and which cannot be easily copied or bought.

Financial and operational readiness

Is your startup financially ready to bear the operational costs of scaling into new markets? Unless you have invested market dollars over a reasonable period of time to build your brand presence internationally, your brand equity overseas is negligible.

Resources have to be allocated to build new partnerships, create brand awareness and build a business process that can sustainably support new international business contracts. Collaborations and partnerships with local entrepreneurs and investors who have a better understanding of the market may be useful for startups to lower some of the direct market entry costs and associated risk.

A clear, measurable plan

Do you have a roadmap for success? It is critical for you to be strategic in pacing the growth of your startup and have a clear, measurable roadmap in place before taking the plunge. Uber’s failed entry into the region, where they took an “enter first, think later” approach did not work to their favour.

Although it is nigh impossible to predict market dynamics in its entirety, learning from the successes and failures of incumbents can greatly improve your startup’s odds of success. Anticipating possible risks and drawing up their mitigation measures can fast-track the decision-making process.

Cultural Diversity

Startups must also understand the various government regulations and infrastructure unique to each jurisdiction. The region presents various forms of bureaucratic red tape, legalities, and infrastructure. By understanding the infrastructure that is available or lacking in the markets, startups will be able to develop business models that comply with existing regulations.

Being culturally sensitive to how business is conducted can sometimes be the sole determinant to your startup’s success in the region. To ease the process or validate observations, startups can turn to neutral intermediaries such as government bodies that assist overseas-based startups for support.

Also Read: SaaS parcel tracking platform Parcel Perform lands in Europe

For instance in Singapore, there are initiatives established by the government and private entities such as Austrade’s Landing Pads program, Enterprise Singapore and ICE71 in which startups can participate in to accelerate their entry into the region. Austrade’s Landing Pads program provides later-stage Australian startups with a tailor made residency program that offers business advice and contacts to successfully launch their business in Singapore and the region.

Once international startups make it out of the maze that is SEA, they can reap the immense opportunities that the region offers. By establishing an understanding of the inner workings of the region, they will then be well-positioned to build a foundation for entry into the global market. After all, SEA is the gateway to Asia and the world.

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Malaysia is one of the most multicultural nations in Southeast Asia, and so are her startups

As famously stated by Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures, “individuals don’t build great companies, teams do”. From speaking to both Founders and startup employees over the years, the imperative of building leaders and developing team dynamic has become clear to us.

It is the interaction of each stellar individual member that will maximise the performance of your team.

Back in February, ConnectOne teamed up with iPrice Group, Southeast Asia’s leading price comparison and coupon platform in seven countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Hong Kong), to conduct a team building workshop using Emergenetics for their Leadership team in Malaysia.

Working in a region that is a melting pot of different cultures, the company fully embraces diversity — which requires an even greater awareness of each other’s learning style and work habits.

“It’s extremely difficult to understand how to work effectively with other people from different cultural backgrounds with different preferences to think and act. This is crucial to if we want to grow 10x in the business”
– Heinrich M. Wendel, iPrice CTO

Also Read: Indonesia’s Startup Legal Clinic, a helping hand for startups’ legal woes

From that day we found three key lessons on building the ultimate power team:

Lesson 1: Understanding each team members’ communication style as well as your own

We have all heard the saying “communication is key” and this could not be more emphasized for any fast-scaling startup team. It is not only about making sense of your own communication style but understanding those of others.

The workshop brought this dynamic team of leaders together as we guided them on how to adapt their individual approaches to suit one another and to facilitate effective communication.

Lesson 2: There is no one-size-fits-all leadership model

“The most valuable lesson is that no preference or combination of such is the “right” one”
– iPrice participant

Whilst some may argue that scientific tools are restricting and place individuals into boxes, we take an educative approach to identify behavioural preferences and improve self-awareness for better performance.

This allowed participants to recognize their personal strengths and weaknesses, encouraging them to work around them by understanding what works and what does not.

Lesson 3: Knowing your team will better determine what new hires you need

Earlier in the year, we carried out a survey asking members of the startup community on their top hiring and organization problems, and ‘hiring the right people’ easily emerged at the top of the list. Workshop participants shared that uncovering the preferential composition of their team paved the way for continued growth and team improvement as it highlighted what skills and working styles were lacking.

All in all, we want to say a huge thank you to our friends at iPrice for their fantastic engagement during the day and delighted to hear that they continue to reflect upon the day’s learnings three months on.

“We are now able to create our own management style without exhausting ourselves but still able to fulfil the requirements of the role”
– iPrice participant

Likewise, it was an eye-opening experience for our consultants to observe the high-level of willingness demonstrated by the team to learn more about each other and to see the growth that can occur from a single day.

Also Read: Is a career in biotech right for you?

“My role is to ensure that the environment is safe enough for a participant to open up and express their frustrations without fear of being labelled an outcast. That was certainly achieved when the minority thinking preference spoke their minds; and the majority immediately sought to assure them of their value and thank them for their contributions.”
– Joanna Yeoh, ConnectOne Director and Workshop Leader

The workshop helped build rapport for a fast-growing team and improve communication between different leads and seniority. Making the right hire can take many hours and rounds of decision making.

Why waste that talent away by not strengthening how these individuals think and act together as a team?

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A career in biotech can be a great choice for a multitasking, team-oriented individual who does not fear changes

Choosing a career can be the most difficult decision we make in our lives. Although some people seem to know from childhood what they want to do, others struggle through college and beyond.

Here are some things to know about the biotechnology field that will help you decide if a career in biotech is right for you:

Biotech is an ever-changing field

Science, in general, is ever-changing, so if you work in biotech, you need to be flexible and ready to roll with the changes that come your way. You will work with different people, you will need to learn new procedures, and you may even change where you work throughout your career. If you do not mind changes year after year, you will have a better chance of enjoying biotech.

You will do better in biotech if you are team-oriented

You might imagine your life in biotech in a lab, working by yourself all day. But the truth is that many projects in biotech require teamwork, including operations, production, marketing, and R&D. If you work well with others, you are more likely to excel in a career in biotech.

Biotech requires multitasking

A career in biotech requires multitasking. You will often be working on more than one project at a time and trying to balance it all. It can be fun and challenging, but it can also be stressful if you are someone who prefers to focus on one thing at a time. If you are someone who loves to do a lot at one time, however, biotech might be perfect for you.

Also Read: Biotech startup RWDC raises US$13M co-led by Vickers Venture, WI Harper to produce biodegradable plastic

Biotech requires you to learn quickly and handle setbacks

Biotech is a fast-paced industry that requires much learning and adaptation. You will need to learn quickly, and most likely you will be teaching yourself. You will also need to be resilient and effectively handle setbacks, such as having a project terminated. This can happen for numerous reasons, including business decisions, technical issues, or scientific reasons. If you can handle these types of setbacks and not allow them to shake you, you are more likely to succeed in biotech.

Careers in biotech often come with pressure

A career in biotech will often come with pressure because large amounts of money (sometimes even millions of dollars) will depend on the results of your work. You will also have deadlines and expectations from marketing teams. So, if the idea of pressure terrifies you, biotech is probably not the right fit.

Only you can decide if a career in biotech is right for you. Consider your personal strengths, as well as your likes and dislikes.  Do you prefer a consistent work environment with less pressure and changes? If you do, you have probably already realised that biotech is not for you.

Or do you love the idea of a challenge? Can you learn quickly, handle pressure, work with others and effectively multitask? If you can answer yes to these questions, biotech be perfect for you.

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Image Credit: Drew Hays on Unsplash

This article originally appeared on weigarofolo.wordpress.com.

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Content marketing need not only be done by content marketers

The looming content war in Asia

Content was once hailed as king in the new digital economy, a comparison which may be apt in a way beyond originally intended.

While content does have the power of royalty — allowing founders to seize share from competitors, enrich their coffers, and secure market leadership — it is also becoming as scarce.

The content crisis in Asia

To look at it another way, compare the creation to consumption ratio for most forms of digital content. The gripping series you consume on Netflix over the course of a weekend might have taken more than a year to produce and tens of millions of dollars to bankroll.

The same goes for other digital mediums. The column you read in The New York Times may have taken the essayist the course of several weeks to write, revise, and rewrite. The ten-minute documentary you watch on your Facebook Newsfeed was probably created with man-hours a thousand times that figure.

In short, the cost of creating content — including not only money, but time and resources — is spiralling ever upward, and even then, it seems to barely keep pace with our insatiable demand.

But, much like a price war, a content war produces only a pyrrhic victory: The ostensible winner may have the most popular content for viewers now — until that is someone with a bigger warchest comes along to produce more, produce better.

Also Read: What I learnt from training Malaysia’s most multicultural startup

Companies in Asia Pacific staring down a possible content war should avoid one at all costs, and instead take notes from their peers in the region succeeding through co-creation or outright user-generated content.

These collaborative approaches allow the companies to keep pace with the demand for content, while minimizing the necessary investment to the bare minimum. These companies are pioneering a MVC, if you want to repurpose a term from startup terminology, with their minimum viable content.

Everyone is a content creator

Perhaps the most prominent example of co-creation content in Southeast Asia comes courtesy of iflix.

The Malaysian video on demand service launched what it calls a Creators Hub earlier this year, which will incubate 30 content creators for one year, providing them funding, networking, bootcamp, and other resources. As the program is still in first year, the results remain to be seen, but iflix knows very well the goldmine it is tapping into: It will source and develop the very best content creators from the more than 500,000 active across the region.

One platform that has already benefited from a surplus of user-generated content is livestreaming hub Kumu from the Philippines. While Kumu has its own shows produced in-house, the vast majority of its content is user-generated.

The very best of its user-generated content is as creative and slick as any in-house show — these amateur hosts self-produce livestreams that including singing, dancing, improvisational acting, and even games.

The proof that such user-generated content is as effective at capturing hearts and minds as traditionally produced shows is in the numbers: Although it launched only last year, Kumu already boasts of an astounding 500,000 users. Venture capitalists see the value of these user livestreams, too, as a group of top investors, led by Summit Media, invested US$1.2 million in the company at the tail end of last year.

Their dollar goes further here: That warchest will support exponentially more user-generated content than it will studio-produced shows.

Even traditional publications are getting in on the action.

Social news network Rappler has been embroiled in political issues as of late, which has arguably overshadowed its incredible effort for user-generated content with RapplerX. The platform allowed non-journalists to contribute meaningful stories, as part of the company’s overall commitment to citizen journalism.

That RapplerX is reportedly being shuttered to give way to building a new, improved platform only shows the value of user-generated content. Rather than adding more journalists one-by-one, you can expand storytelling capability exponentially by giving way to community voices.

It would be a mistake to think that co-creation and user-generated content can only benefit companies already in the media space. Entrepreneurs in consumer or enterprise verticals would be well served to look into producing their content this way, as part of a more efficient bid to be the thought leader of their respective industry.

Recruitday in the Philippines, for example, is leveraging knowledge and data gleaned from its stakeholders — job seekers, recruiters (“Scouts”), and employers — to create content beneficial for all three, in a way that no other competitor can. This creative alchemy helps job seekers land the perfect job, scouts to successfully refer candidates, and employers find the best talent.

Also Read: The clock is ticking for SMEs to get their shields up against cyber-threats

Other consumer and enterprise companies should take note and think of ways on how they can use their already existing community to create content marketing that is a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Content marketing, in short, need not only be done by content marketers. You can tap into the collective wisdom of your community and emerge with a winning strategy.

While your peers sink time, money, and resources into expensive, company-owned content, you should turn to co-creation and user-generated content to achieve thought leadership in your space, and before long, market leadership.

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It’s high time Singapore SMEs fought back against the evolving cyber-threat landscape

As the Asia-Pacific region undergoes rapid digital transformation, emerging technologies are coming to the forefront of many businesses in Singapore.

Despite the positive business benefits delivered by such technologies – including fostering innovation and optimised workplace efficiencies – with any digitisation comes an inherent risk. As organisations move into this new cyber era, the expanding digital business has opened the door for cyber-criminals to launch increasingly potent and sophisticated attacks.

Due to often limited reliable cyber resources and insufficient IT talent, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are increasingly falling prey to cyber-threats.

In fact, recent surveys show that three in five SMEs in Singapore have had cybersecurity breaches that resulted in business disruptions and data leaks over the past 12 months – and of these, 40 per cent of cyber-attacks in Singapore have been found to target SMEs.

Also Read: The essentials of mapping a customer journey across digital assets

Amidst the constant rise in data breaches, SMEs must stop consigning cybersecurity to the backburner.

By taking a preventative, rather than reactive, approach to cyber defences – such as harnessing the power of cyber AI and fostering a strong – SMEs can overcome the roadblocks they face in defending themselves, and rise as more resilient against the evolving threat landscape.

Raising cyber awareness by cultivating a robust corporate culture

According to a survey from Chubb, half of all SMEs said key staff members may not be fully aware of their obligations to protect the data to which they have access. Even further, the survey found that most do not fully understand what constitutes a cybersecurity risk.

The lack of awareness around the urgency of cyber defence in light of an advanced and evolving ecosystem of cyber-criminals, coupled with the traditional downplaying of such risks, threatens the lifeline of the SME economy in the region.

Therefore it has become critical that SMEs foster a culture of cyber awareness across the entire business – from top management to entry-level employees – which can be achieved as easily as organising regular staff training sessions and briefings on cyber best practices.

Since workplace culture drives employee behaviour, SMEs can engage both new and older employees in campaigns and workshops. Staff training can focus on case studies of previous cyber-attacks, some of which have stemmed from e-mail phishing – clicking on suspicious links, tech support scams, malware infection, among others.

By encouraging such educational programmes at the workplace, businesses can reduce employee vulnerability to cyber-attacks, and educate them on how to boost frontline cyber defence to safeguard critical information.

Overcoming limited resources and talent by tapping into cyber AI defence

While fostering a culture of cybersecurity and getting familiar with potential risk is a strong start, SMEs simply cannot defeat sophisticated cyber-attackers without the help of AI technologies – the cyber threat landscape evolves too quickly, and attacks strike at machine speeds.

And after all, many SMEs still lack sufficient cyber security infrastructure and headcounts required to defend against minor cyber breaches.

Human teams and traditional technologies are already outpaced by cyber-criminals. What will happen when threat-actors turn to AI to supercharge their attack methods? Cyber AI is thus imperative to actively detect and neutralise threats within seconds of it emerging on the network. SMEs will have to arm themselves with AI, combatting these adversaries with machines to win the war of algorithm against algorithm.

Moreover, and a huge value add for SMEs, AI-enabled technologies play an active role in filling the gap of IT talent shortage. Industry sectors that are currently under-staffed are turning to cyber AI defence solutions that autonomously pre-empt and neutralise cyber risks before they turn into full-fledged cyber-attacks. With such technological help, SMEs can minimise the odds of a major cyber incident and lower potential damages.

This has already been proven to work across thousands of customers. In one example, cyber AI found that a senior executive at a financial services company in Singapore became a target of a phishing scam launched by sophisticated cyber-criminals.

After entering into the corporate network via a malicious link within an email, the attackers were able to move laterally through the company’s cyber infrastructure looking to compromise sensitive information.

However, Darktrace’s AI technology identified this suspicious, irregular behaviour within two seconds, buying back critical time for the lean security team to respond and mitigate the threat – before it escalated into a crisis.

Time for cyber-readiness is now

As SMEs currently make up 99 per cent of Singapore’s enterprises, employ two-thirds of the workforce, and account for half of Singapore’s GDP, any vulnerability to cyber-threats will have a toll on our economy and wider society.

Also Read: What I learnt from training Malaysia’s most multicultural startup

These organisations must acknowledge that despite the various barriers they may face, a proactive cyber approach should still be adopted.

The first half of 2019 has seen multiple high-profile cyber incidents and the trend is unlikely to stop any time soon.

Organisations, regardless of size, must not only cultivate a better understanding of cyber-risks among their employees, but also ramp up rapid detection and containment strategies fuelled by AI technology – enabling institutions to stay one step ahead of tomorrow’s threat.

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e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

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The startup arm at Intellectual Ventures formed a joint venture with NTU’s innovation and enterprise company NTUitive

ISF Incubator announced that it has formed a joint venture with NTUitive, the innovation and enterprise company of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore to form a new 3D printing startup called Secur3DP+.

Secur3DP+ is a startup that brings additive manufacturing to global companies by providing a supply chain hub for 3D printing. The system is built on a blockchain solution.

Secur3DP+ will be initially funded by a contribution of seed capital from ISF Incubator. It also has partnered with NAMIC (the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster led by NTUitive) to tap into the country’s thriving startup and 3D printing ecosystem.

Secur3DP+ claimed that it has acquired certain patents and patent applications related to 3D printing and it has access to NTU’s expertise in 3D printing and blockchain. With Secur3DP+, additive manufacturing is intended to be a viable option for more companies through the creation of a global 3D printing network that will connect companies with vetted service providers.

Secur3DP+ allows secure workflow solutions through validation and authorisation of all projects, ensuring the right products are created and delivered in the most cost-effective way, and it enables startups and multi-national corporations to protect and track their IP assets.

Also Read: Indonesia’s Startup Legal Clinic, a helping hand for startups’ legal woes

“Our partnership with NTU gives us access to one of the region’s top technology institutions,” said Jerome Hewlett, vice president and head of Asia business development for ISF. “We will continue to look for strong local entrepreneurs to lead other companies throughout the region.”

“Our company is filling a critical gap in the mass adoption of 3D printing,” said Eng Kiat Low, CEO of Secur3DP+. “By creating a global ecosystem of trusted partners, we hope to accelerate the adoption of 3D printing and allow businesses all over the world to get the products they need and do so securely, anytime, anywhere.”
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The saturated and tricky Asian e-commerce space raises many doubts but little room for error

Thanks to the stunning rates of tech adoption, the increase of open trade across Asian borders and the rise of discretionary income, e-commerce has become the newest young-hot-thing.

The potential for growth is high as ever. Asia-Pacific (APAC), for instance, is currently home to over 60 per cent of the global population – and the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Given that the online economy of Southeast Asia (SEA) alone is expected to hit US$240 billion by 2025, global players are keen to participate in the space despite the challenges they have to face.

To start, they have to compete with homegrown ventures that already have a pool of loyal local customer bases. This is perhaps best exemplified by Amazon’s recent retreat from China due to its struggle to compete with the likes of Alibaba and JD.

Still, the relative newness of the space means that there are opportunities for established companies with global experience to offer value to the region’s various e-commerce stakeholders. Texas-based e-commerce platform BigCommerce, for example, announced on February that the company had opened an office in Singapore in an effort to expand its reach in the region.

BigCommerce Director of Asia, Dene Schonknecht, recently agreed to share his thoughts on the challenges and strategies involved with expanding an e-commerce presence through a partner ecosystem in the APAC region, in this article.

The APAC e-commerce opportunity

Despite rapid developments in Asian e-commerce infrastructure and fintech, barriers to launching an e-commerce business still exist.

Many Southeast Asian merchants simply choose to set up shop on marketplaces like Lazada, Tokopedia and Shopee, opting to trade sales percentages and pay fees for an easier way to establish their online presences.

Smaller sellers even continue to rely on free online classifieds and Facebook Marketplace due to the capital and technical expertise needed to create an e-commerce app or site. These businesses miss out on the benefits that having their own e-commerce channel brings, such as better branding, customized experiences, and omnichannel opportunities.

“We’re still seeing a gap in the platform market, so we believe in the opportunity available to us in APAC – and believe that we can add value to merchants in the region,” Shonknecht explained. “We spend a lot of time telling our story, educating merchants and partners on how we are unique relative to the established competition.”

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By entering the arena, BigCommerce is banking on continued growth in regional demand for e-commerce tech solutions, which in turn, is contingent on continued e-commerce shopping growth in the region.

While it already has existing customers in Asia including brands like Isetan, Resmed and Suntec, the company believes that the wider community of Asian entrepreneurs is still under-served.

The challenges of being a challenger

Schonknecht says that he sees two key challenges to his company’s Asian penetration efforts. First is market prioritisation. They need to ensure that their team is focused on markets where there is the best combination of merchant demand, product fit and partner competency.

Second is branding and education. As a new entrant in the space, the company needs to be able to communicate its distinct identity as well as its global credibility.

To overcome these challenges, it’s critical for them to establish a partner ecosystem consisting of agencies and developers, to encourage merchants to adopt the solution.

“As anyone who has done business in APAC will know, there is no monolithic market known as ‘Asia,’” Schonknecht asserted. “In order to be able to serve this region effectively, we need local agencies and developers that operate close to merchants and understand the intricacies of the local or regional e-commerce markets they operate in.

They will ultimately be the ones working with merchants to bring all parts of the ecosystem together – including localized solutions for payments, shipping, tax and marketplaces,” he said.

The region’s diversity is both a boon and bane for e-commerce players. While the variety of niches and locales can provide them with fresh opportunities, this also means that platforms need to support integrations with hundreds of locally favoured services.

How to win as an outsider

Other platforms like Magento and Shopify have already made some headway in the region, establishing regional offices in 2017 and 2018, respectively. A Magento veteran himself, Schonknecht is aware of the strategies needed to make a splash in the Asian market.

Each of these American e-commerce giants have attacked Asia with their own distinct strategy.

“Shopify’s approach seems to be more focused on serving smaller startup businesses with a closed ecosystem of Shopify services like payments and point-of-sale,” Schonknecht said.

“Magento, on the other hand, is trying to push more into the enterprise segment of the market following the Adobe acquisition and subsequent price increases for its Commerce Cloud. So while our strategies may be similar in terms of market entry in Asia, we believe the BigCommerce value proposition of ‘open SaaS’ will serve a significant segment of Asian markets.”

Indeed, the platform’s customisability and available integrations will also be key. The specific needs of e-commerce stakeholders in a market like Asia may not be supported out-of-the-box by platforms that were initially designed for use in the West.

For example, due to the large population of unbanked customers, cash-on-delivery (COD) remains to be a preferred payment method in the region. For a platform to be of value to merchants, it must be able to work smoothly with the various logistics providers that can handle COD.

“It’s early, and the market feedback has been validating our approach. That said, we are making tweaks – for example, around which agency or technology partners we work with – in order to have the most impact in the markets we prioritise,” Schonknecht shared.

“For example, we often provide product roadmap feedback and development requests to our teams in Austin or Sydney to accommodate a local requirement like a specific payment gateway, logistics solution or the like.”

New players are (somewhat) welcome

Considering that its formal foray in the APAC scene is just a few months old, BigCommerce’s efforts in building a partner network is already showing promise.

“On the agency partner side, during Q1, we have signed up 50 per cent of the target agencies we intend to work within 2019, so interest in partnering with BigCommerce is strong,” said Schonknecht.

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“The partners are already driving the incremental net new pipeline of business that we simply would not have been in consideration for until we had established our presence here.”

It will be interesting to see how well the platform fares in the year ahead. E-commerce stakeholders in the region definitely stand to benefit from the presence of another platform, especially one that offers support, active development and a growing ecosystem.

But nothing is a sure bet anymore, particularly given how saturated and tricky the Asian e-commerce space is. And with increasing signs of global and regional economic uncertainty, Schonknecht and team have their work cut out for them.

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