Digital Transformation (DX) among businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak was a watershed moment, as it required businesses to relocate to online platforms in order to stay viable. Over the last two years, there has been an increase in DX among SMEs but there is still a percentage of businesses that are truly hesitant to adopt it.

In my opinion, the main issue lies in the interpretation of digitalisation for first-time users of technology. Business owners who are used to traditional methods of operating would be greatly affected as they do not know where to start, leading to a sense of hesitancy even in exploring the possibility of digital adoption.

Therefore, we have to be able to make digitisation more understandable by breaking it down into smaller, more digestible pieces that will eventually help them overcome their fear of technology.

In working with multiple businesses over the last 10 years, I believe that painting an accurate picture of the benefits that the adoption of digital tools will result in is the most effective way of convincing business owners who are reluctant to explore these innovative changes.

Understanding that clear, realistic returns on investment (ROI) and noticeable added value are what business owners prioritise, I think that it is crucial that technology consultants like SRKK take the time to give them a step-by-step guide on how the digitalisation journey will unfold for their individual companies.

At the same time, making sure that they adhere to preparing, planning, prioritising, and executing the five key pillars of digital transformation so their digital transformation journey meets their business objectives.

Leadership mindset and alignment

The first pillar is maintaining a leadership mindset and alignment because a DX journey begins with a robust mindset at a leadership level. This ecosystem of leaders needs to collectively agree digital transformation will reap benefits for them, and is feasible while being worth the time, money, and effort spent.

Very often, leadership teams can be either aware or unaware of their internal problems. Leaders who are unaware tend to view digital transformation as an impossible feat, and mostly subscribe to the mindset of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”.

Also Read: How can design-thinking promote consumer trust in the digital world

This can be remedied, as a start, by attending tech vendor workshops, webinars, and events to build confidence in digitally transforming.

Team leaders who are aware of their organisation’s problems believe in DX and are taking baby steps to solve urgent and important problems with technology, although they don’t yet have a clear picture and roadmap.

This can be overcome by using an impact/effort matrix to prioritise and get the easy wins that continue to fuel the DX journey. Impact/effort matrices help companies course-correct fast, align team priorities, and identify the best solutions to a problem whilst saving time and effort.

Once the organisational problems are identified, leadership teams should adopt a solution-aware mindset to build robust digital transformation roadmaps with sufficient resources to support well-thought-out initiatives to ensure sustainable, long-term growth.

Business-led technology roadmap

Once a company’s leadership mindset has been fixed and they have a better understanding of the benefits of digitalisation, they would need to build a successful business roadmap. When creating this guide, I believe that simplicity is best for beginners and the simplest way to a robust, actionable roadmap is to divide it into two main categories:

• Business value drivers
• Environment, infrastructure and governance

These parameters ensure that the company leaders know what they are trying to digitalise, what the economic impact will be, how can they reach their goal and which area to prioritise.

Currently, the SRKK team has created a templated roadmap that has been leveraged by our consultants when they speak to different customers. It has helped us to engage the customers’ pain points better and we realised that more than 70 per cent of businesses benefitted from the clearly defined SRKK DX framework and started their DX journey.

For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Malaysian government-linked company (GLC) focusing on palm oil plantation, farming and livestock businesses embarked on their DX journey that included adopting Microsoft 365 for hybrid work.

As we have customised the different phases to help improve the customer’s business processes including their cybersecurity, when the customer decided to improve email security for their 744 information workers, the IT team reported a significantly lower amount of support calls related to malware, phishing and spam emails.

We believe that by having a curated DX methodology that suits the customers, they can keep progressing on their DX journey at a speedy pace yet at a lower cost.

Appointing talents to drive the digitalisation effort

Complement having the right leadership mindset and a robust roadmap are strong key talents to power this transformation process. Firstly, a  technology-literate business leader with an in-depth understanding of the company’s overall strategy and roadmap is needed to prioritize and sponsor projects throughout the DX journey.

Also Read: Why Singapore’s traditional sectors need a digital makeover

Moreover, this role will involve ensuring that implementations are value-driven. Next, a passionate change champion who is articulate, persuasive, and persistent is necessary to motivate change across departments, convincing their team members in embracing new challenges.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that having an excellent IT manager to coordinate and facilitate the tech selection process, and assist in pilots and implementations, while relating to their IT environment is a key role to have. Last but not least, whether in-house or outsourced,  Technical Resources are required to implement digital transformation decisions.

Culture

A common misunderstanding is that DX is completed when a company upgrades its technology. However, digital transformation is not about software or technology; it is about organisational agility. In an agile environment, employees are not penalised for “failing fast, and learning”, boldness is encouraged over caution, and there is more action and less planning.

Agility allows your company to respond quickly to changing market conditions brought on by DX whilst also allowing leadership teams to focus on strategic decision-making. It is important for companies to start practising a DX-friendly culture as it challenges the status quo and is unafraid of change.

This would eventually create a safe space for employees to try their strengths and discover their weaknesses, further fueling l innovation.

Delivery and adoption

Finally, whether your company’s digital adoption is successful depends on whether the implementations have improved the company’s performance.

To get a good idea of this, two-way communication between technologists and end-users is very much needed so that feedback is constantly communicated, thus leading to better adoption rates.

A more convenient way to implement this method of communication is through a Scrum and Agile framework where ‘scrum’ is a framework of rules, roles or events that are used to implement ‘agile’ projects efficiently.

This framework should be considered during implementations to ensure that cross-functional teams are communicating regularly, aligned on priorities, closing the feedback loop, and delivering value rapidly.

Hence, I hope business owners have gained a few ideas on how they can have productive conversations and effectively brainstorm around the five pillars mentioned here, and better prepare, plan, prioritise and pull off their DX journey.

With the reopening of borders and more businesses starting to bounce back, I hope that more traditional businesses use this opportunity to start digitalising their businesses with the help of these five pillars as I’m confident that it will make a huge impact on our country’s economy.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post The 5 pillars of digital transformation that meet business objectives effciently appeared first on e27.

On August 25, 2021, a tweet by Mattias Martinsson, Chief Investment Officer at Tundra Fonder, a Swedish asset manager specialising in frontier markets, drew the attention of many.

“Have followed Pakistan for 15 years. Can’t recall any time when VC activity was anywhere near [that] we’ve seen in the last few months. Impact of reforms kicking in?”, he tweeted.

The tweet, which referred to the record amounts of venture funding being poured into Pakistan in 2021, well captured the changing market sentiment.

And this positive sentiment could, well, mark a new dawn for the Islamic republic’s startup ecosystem.

However, the picture was totally different until three-four years ago. Pakistan, plagued by security concerns for many years, had not been a preferred destination for foreign VCs. The unrest in neighbouring Afghanistan, following its invasion by a US-led coalition in the 2000s, had ripples in Pakistan. Consequently, the country faced several massive terrorist attacks. Its unpredictable and unstable political system added to the woes.

This precariousness scared away global investors from investing in the nation.

While Pakistan was struggling to check the growing terrorist activities and shed its image as an insecure nation, its arch-rival India was marching ahead, attracting billions of dollars in VC money. India, whose digitisation rate grew fast in the recent years, also minted around 100 unicorns in the last 10-plus years, whereas Pakistan produced none.

Finding the feet

After two decades of uncertainty and confusion, Pakistan’s tech startup ecosystem appears to have finally found its feet — if the growing VC activity is any indicator. In 2021, a record US$352 million was raised by more than 50 local startups, statistics by consulting agency Invest2Innovate (i2i) showed. To put this in context, local startups secured only US$465 million between 2016 and 2021 (see the graph).

What made the 2021 boom more exciting was that a big chunk of the dollars came from international investors. Among them were notable VCs, such as Kleiner Perkins (the US), Defy Partners Management (the US), Wavemaker Partners (Singapore), and Zayn Capital (UAE).

The kind of VC money invested in 2022 so far also brings cheers to the ecosystem. In the first three-month period, startups secured 7x as much investment as in Q1 last year, with names such as Indus Valley Capital, Defy Partners, Acrew Capital, Wavemaker Partners, B&Y Venture Partners, and Zayn Capital injecting capital.

Also Read: The 5 women in tech from Pakistan you must know

Many factors are attributed to this investor confidence. The primary reason is the improved security situation; the number of terror-related incidents in the nation has dropped in recent years. An improved digital infrastructure also worked in its favour. Pakistan, with a population of 228 million, had 82.90 million (about 36.5 per cent) internet users as of January 2022.

Besides, Pakistan recently introduced new reforms to become more startup-friendly. The previous PTI government, led by Imran Khan, realised the importance of startups to the country’s economic growth and wanted it to be a hub for new businesses, along the lines of Silicon Valley. The government had also been very responsive to the growing startup ecosystem and instituted several policies from “tax holidays” through special zones to regularising holding companies to creating fintech licenses.

In February this year, the government also established Pakistan Technology Startup Fund worth one billion rupees (US$5.4 million) to provide seed financing to 50 startups annually.

In addition to these initiatives, the central bank, the SBP, introduced new legislation that allows international investors to invest in an entity registered in a foreign land but has operations in Pakistan (it was disallowed earlier).

The reforms also included a legal framework for Electronic Money Institutions (aimed at offering innovative payment services to the general public), the Digital Banking Policy (aimed at granting the license to set up wholly digital banks), and the setting up of Special Technology Zones.

With all this in place, Pakistan now has an active startup ecosystem, with many incubators and accelerators, including i2i, the National Incubation Centers, Nest IO, Plan 9, and Plan X. Several co-working places like COLABS, Daftarkhawan, and The Hive have also emerged recently.

Many early-stage VCs and angel networks are also operational in the nation. The names include CresVentures, DotZero, Planet N, Lakson Investments, Fatima Ventures, Deosai Ventures, 47 Ventures, i2i Ventures, HBL ventures, Indus Valley Capital, Virtual Force, Karavan, Zayn Capital, Walled City Co.

According to Kalsoom Lakhani, Co-Founder and General Partner of i2i Ventures (the US$15-million VC arm of i2i), the pace at which things are moving in Pakistan right now is probably 20x faster than she had ever seen. Moreover, the time between two successive financing rounds is also getting shorter, she says.

As a result of the changing business environment, many foreign-educated young Pakistanis have started quitting their overseas plum jobs at MNCs like Morgan Stanley and McKinsey to set up their own ventures back home. For instance, Aatif Awan, with over a decade working for tech behemoths such as LinkedIn, came back in early 2020 to launch his own VC firm Indus Valley Capital. This early-stage VC firm has already backed eight companies, including Bazaar (a B2B e-commerce marketplace, which recently secured US$70M in a Series B round) and Airlift (a quick commerce startup that bagged US$85M in Series B in 2021).

According to Awan, Pakistan now has all the necessary ingredients to grow — quality startups, a critical mass of internet users, and smart VC money. It is geographically smaller and well-connected, with fewer provinces. Regulatory barriers are also lower.

All these factors have attracted foreign VCs to Pakistan — the last big untapped market globally.

However, the road ahead is still more than bumpy for local startups.

Lack of exits a problem

As startups make waves and put their names on the global map, new problems worry the ecosystem. They include lack of access to growth-stage capital and reluctance among people to open bank accounts (about 100 million adults don’t have access to formal and regulated financial services).

As for exits, the higher valuation of startups is a common concern for many investors. This effectively closes the possible exit routes for startups. According to Suleman Rafiq Maniya (Head of Advisory) at Vector Securities, it may be hard for VCs to get an exit through the stock market because the valuations of startups are higher compared to listed companies.

Exit through acquisitions is also scarce, likely discouraging investors from investing further in local startups. Barring Alibaba’s acquisition of Daraz and Ant Group’s buying of a 45 per cent stake in Telenor’s EasyPaisa in 2018, there have not been any major exits in the past three years. Awan says that the market is still too early for material exits, and it will take the ecosystem a few years for more substantial exits to materialise.

The Pakistan Startup Ecosystem Report 2021 by i2i warns that if foreign VCs don’t see clear long-term prospects locally, they may desist from cutting bigger cheques or making strategic investments.

The Series A and growth-stage capital crunch also poses a problem to Pakistan like any other emerging ecosystem. “There is a lot that a government can do here but I think it is the private sector that should take the lead here. The government can ensure a fair playing field. For that reason, early-stage Pakistani VCs should take the lead to fill the gap. If they fill this gap, they will be able to attract foreign VCs,” says Taraec Hussein, an investor with Gobi Partners, one of the most active VCs in Pakistan.

What future holds for Pakistan

Indus Valley’s Awan believes that the momentum that Pakistani startups gained in H1 2021 will continue in 2022. More top investors, including traditional and cross-border VC funds, will come to invest in Pakistan. Global accelerators like Y Combinator and 500 Global will also double down on local startups.

“The Pakistani startup ecosystem has had a late start, but it’s taking off quickly. The year 2021 saw more VC funding than all prior years combined, and 2022 seems on track to more than double that. By 2025, the VC funding in Pakistan is projected to exceed US$2 billion annually. In the next three-five years, several unicorns will be minted in Pakistan across B2C e-commerce, B2B e-commerce, logistics, and fintech,” believes Awan.

Also Read: Gobi-backed Pakistani startup Airlift raises US$12M Series A led by Uber investor First Round Capital

“We expect the new government to continue with startup-friendly policies. There is broad recognition across the political spectrum on tech being the major driver of foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports, so all parties recognise the importance of investing in the tech ecosystem,” Awan shares.

Conrurrs Gobi’s Hussein: “Venture capital is now a key economic pillar of any country and for that reason, it will be extremely foolish for the new government to pull back some of the reforms brought by the previous government. Also, there is so much buzz, interest and hype around VCs and entrepreneurship, founders and startups in Pakistan.”

However, Awan warns that there will be some failures in the local startup scene. “As more and more startups get early-stage funding, the founders will realise that capital isn’t the hardest part of building a great company. Finding product-market fit is hard. Building a world-class team is hard. Competing with multiple well-funded startups and going after the same market is hard.”

Some startups may scale to a certain level but then fail to go past that thanks to any of the reasons mentioned above. It is not a bad thing but is actually a positive thing for the ecosystem. “Because in the long run, people will learn from these experiences and go on to build something bigger and better,” Awan concludes.

—

Copyright: sakhaphotos

The post Pakistan startups, the last massive untapped opportunity in the world appeared first on e27.

NFTs are tokens that can be used to portray possession of unique items. They enable us to tokenise things such as collectibles, art, and even real estate.

They can merely have a single official owner at once, and they’re guarded by the Ethereum blockchain; nobody can change the record of possession or copy/paste a fresh NFT into existence.

It stands for non-fungible token. An economic term that you might utilise to explain things is non-fungible such as a song file, your computer, or your furniture. These things are not exchangeable for other items since they have unique characteristics.

On the contrary, they can be switched because their worth defines them instead of their unique properties.

Now that we know what NFT is, let’s jump into its standards.

Ethereum blockchain

The ERC721 was the novel non-fungible token standard constructed on Ethereum. Ethereum was the pioneer in this space and is even currently the most broadly utilised blockchain platform for developing and introducing NFTs.

However, the Flow and Tezos blockchain protocols are keeping up fast and will possibly exceed Ethereum in the near forthcoming.

Transactions on entire blockchain platforms have a connected cost, generally an insignificant figure. The transactions on Ethereum are worked in ‘gas.’ When Ethereum was established, gas was connected to the cost of ETH on the open market; the pioneers didn’t anticipate the price of ETH to increase to the point where it would become exorbitant to transact on the platform.

Also Read: NFTs: The good, the bad, and the future

Ethereum’s inherent language is Stability. Ethereum also began with the evidence of work agreement mechanism and planned to change to the evidence of stake consensus mechanism.

Flow blockchain

To comprehend Flow, we require to begin with Cryptokitties. An NFT founded game that enables users to purchase, trade, gather and reproduce digital cats is Cryptokitties. It was started to utilise ERC721 tokens. It became so famous that it blocked the Ethereum blockchain network.

The game is set out to resolve this issue by the team behind and in the procedure formed Flow, a blockchain that was created with crypto-collectibles and games in mind.

Tezos Blockchain

The liquid-proof stake consensus mechanism is utilised by this decentralised blockchain known as Tezos. Tezos has an inherent cryptocurrency named Tez. The platform makers acknowledge that transaction fees require to be low for broad adoption and comfort of use.

How does an NFT work?

Over a blockchain, NFTs survive, that is, a shared public ledger that registers transactions. You’re possibly most habitual with blockchain as the fundamental operation that builds cryptocurrencies feasible.

Particularly, NFTs are usually retained on the Ethereum blockchain, even though other blockchains assist them moreover.

An NFT is established from digital items that depict both intangible and tangible objects, including:

• Art
• Designer sneakers
• Videos and sports highlights
• GIFs
• Virtual avatars and video game skins
• Collectibles
• Music

You won’t believe that even tweets matter. Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder, sold the tweet that was posted by him first ever on the platform for more than US$2.9 million as an NFT.

Even a piece of digital art was sold for US$69 million Non-Fungible Token (NFT).

Basically, NFTs are objects that are collected only digitally. Hence, rather than acquiring a tangible oil painting that can be hung on the wall as a masterpiece, the purchaser gets a digital file.

They also acquire exclusive rights of ownership. You read it right: It can only have a single proprietor consecutively. NFTs’ special data build an easy way to validate their possession and move tokens among owners.

Even the creator can reserve particular information within them. For example, artists can signal their work of art by including their signature in an NFT’s meta-information.

What are the uses of NFTs?

Through NFT marketplace development and blockchain, artists and content makers get an extraordinary opportunity to add monetary worth to their work.

For instance, the artists no longer need to depend on auction houses or galleries to trade their art when there is an NFT marketing agency. Rather, the artisan can directly trade to the client as an NFT, which also allows them to maintain extra profits.

Furthermore, artists can schedule royalties so they will obtain a sales percentage anytime their art is traded to a new owner. This is an appealing feature as artists usually do not obtain future income after first selling their art.

To create money with NFTs art isn’t the only way. Brands such as Taco Bell and Charmin have invited themed NFT art to increase charity funds. Charmin labelled its offering non-fungible toilet paper, as well as Taco Bell, sold out its NFT art in a matter of minutes, with the greatest bids approaching at ether 1.5 (ETH) equals US$3,723.83.

Also Read: NFTs for fundraising: What you need to know before jumping on the bandwagon

In February, a 2011-era GIF of a cat “Nyan Cat,” through a pop-tart body, traded for approximately US$600,000. In late March, NBA Top Shot produced more than $500 million in trade.

Even celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Snoop Dogg leap on the NFT bandwagon, releasing special memories, moments, and artwork as securitised NFTs.

Difference between NFT and cryptocurrency?

NFT is usually built utilising a similar sort of programming as cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, but that’s the point where the similarity ends.

Cryptocurrencies and physical money are “fungible,” meaning they can be sold or traded for each other. They’re also the same in worth; one dollar is constantly valued by another dollar; one Bitcoin is always the same as the other Bitcoin. A trusted resource is built by Crypto’s fungibility of operating transactions on the blockchain.

NFTs are diverse. All have a digital signature that makes it inconceivable for NFTs to be traded for or same to one another (hence, non-fungible).

The future of NFTs

The greatest hazard to NFTs is either the bubble bursts. NFTs could be the white-hot event of the moment, but, as with any novel technology, they still have a few ways to go before they are extensively recognized and turn into truly mainstream.

Notwithstanding the eye-watering sums varying hands in front-page transactions, they are still an extremely niche product and may rightly be crossing fancy digital tulips.

Owners of tokens could wind up sitting on an excess of NFTs with tiny buying concern if there is a decline in their popularity, in the same method as several bubbles have exploded over the last numerous years.

Despite that, as with the broader utilisation of the blockchain, it does look clear that because of NFTs’ utility as records of ownership in the business, they might well be here to remain in any form.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: rokastenys

The post A beginner’s guide into the world of NFTs appeared first on e27.

The Facebook Community Accelerator, which helps leaders harness the power of their community in Southeast Asia, has announced the culmination of its 8-month-long program. 

The program, launched by Meta (parent company of Facebook) in partnership with the region’s leading startup ecosystem platform, e27, aims to turn the impactful ideas of community leaders into actions. 

The 19 community leaders, who underwent hundreds of hours of training, coaching and mentorship, showcased themselves on Demo Day on March 31, 2022. They shared their learnings, the impact they have made on the members of their communities and their future vision with the ecosystem partners.

A vetted list of 15 external Judges from across the Asia Pacific and more than a hundred interested curated Ecosystem Partners attended the event. 

Check out the original 19 communities and their leaders here.

The power of communities and their impact

“Communities can touch and transform lives,” remarked Ellen Alarilla, Head of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility (Southeast Asia and Oceania) at Ericsson. Acknowledging the community leaders’ outstanding efforts, she added, “They all had solid, ambitious plans to scale and extend their impact beyond their current reach and have already touched and transformed lives in their communities.”

Throughout the programme, the communities showed their tremendous power in bringing an impact. According to Holly O’Keeffe, a judge of the program and Chief Impact Officer of Thegoodgap, former-CSR lead at Experian Asia Pacific communities are changing the world with technologies. 

“We have become so used to tech playing an everyday role in our lives that we often take it for granted. The accelerator shone a bright light on the many new ways leaders use technology to change the world for the better and why it’s important to support leaders on their missions,” said O’Keeffe.

Echoing a similar sentiment, Thibaut Briere, Founder of GrowthMarketing Studio, added that he was moved by the fact that each community leader has tried to solve real, concrete problems that have affected people. They go through a lot of work to bring people together and support the community, Briere said.

Gina, a coach, Founder of Connected Women and a community builder of over 16 years, commented that she wished she had received this kind of support in her early days. She also applauded Meta for giving special focus on developing community leaders and helping them put a framework in place for sustainability.

“Too many wonderful communities are short-lived or continue to become a burden to the founders because they fail to find ways to be sustainable. This programme placed an importance on the role of community leadership and helps founders create long-term, wide-scale impact as they become sustainable and scale.”

Also Read: How collaborations between these Facebook communities yield better impact

A few of the communities coached by Gina during the programme showed tremendous progress and saw up to a 33 per cent increase in engagement. 

Amplifying impact and further support

As part of the programme, a selected few communities received up to US$30,000 in additional funding with the help of US-based non-profit Global Giving. 

Below are the details of the communities that have received funding and their stories:

The Bicycle Scouts Project, Inc

• Country: the Philippines
• Community Lead: Myles Delfin

Created in 2013 by Myles Delfin, Bike Scouts provides a network of support and alternative means of access to communication and essential supplies in the aftermath of severe disasters. It is a social teamwork platform for anyone who wants to do something good for their community or anywhere in the world where help is needed. Since its inception, Bike Scouts has grown to add multiple pages and local community groups where they can make a difference.

The programme has enabled Bike Scouts to further scale the membership to 4,000 team leaders around the Philippines. These members themselves are the leaders of their local groups, representing Bike Scouts in their respective regions.

These members have at least 150,000 volunteers who helped serve over 40,000 requests for assistance over the past eight years and delivered 5,000 bicycles for donation. They also secured a social purpose brand activation client project worth US$38,000.

“I feel that the end of the program is just the start of our work. We will all accomplish awesome things with our communities using the lessons we’ve learned from all our amazing coaches, mentors, teachers, and friends. I am eternally grateful for that opportunity and all the incredible moments of joy and a sense of family,” said Delfin.

Bounce Back PH

• Country: the Philippines
• Community lead: Jason Dela Rosa

In March 2020, Jason Dela Rosa started Bounce Back PH to help small businesses and subject matter experts endure and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. It aims to create a community where businesses and business leaders can work together and help each other recover from the crisis. With over 65,000 members, the group has launched hundreds of learning and mentorship programs, donation drives, retooling, and business matching activities for SMEs.

Also Read: Facebook Community Accelerator Program introduces the 19 communities of the 2021 APAC cohort

Through the Facebook Community Accelerator program, Bounce Back achieved several milestones. It over-achieved its revenue goal by 133 per cent and engaged more than 9x more partners. It also launched the first-ever Metaverse bazaar to help push sales for its members. In addition to that, Bounceback also enrolled 126 scholars who were mentored by 45 business executives and industry leaders. It also gained 7,000 new members during this period and launched an influencer program with over 10 million audience reach to help MSMEs to gain traction.

Dela Rosa said: “I want to thank all the community leaders for being the light in times of darkness, and for all the inspiration for us to be better each time for our communities. To our coach, Tamara, the e27 team, and Meta, you have placed our vision on the right track when all seems confusing. We will never forget this experience ever. You can always count on me for future collaborations.”

Home Buddies PH

• Country: the Philippines
• Community Lead: Frances Cabatuando

Home Buddies, started by Frances Cabatuando, wanted to inspire and equip Filipinos with ideas on how they could live and work while stuck at home during the pandemic. It aims to give Filipino home enthusiasts a safe, creative space where they can share and exchange home improvement tips and design inspirations.

Today, Home Buddies have managed to become a three million-strong community and continues to shape the local home improvement scene — hosting free webinars, empowering small businesses, and creating jobs for displaced workers. Its highly engaged community also enjoys weekly parenting talks, on-ground events, and exclusive promos and merchandise.

This year, Home Buddies continues to expand its influence with a subgroup called Home Buddies Hangouts. Here, the tight-knit community continues to share and exchange tips, with an exciting focus on how to create a more memorable and worthwhile home away from home experience.

“Huge congratulations to all my fellow community leaders! Thank you all for making me realize that I’m not alone in my mission to make the world a better place. Thank you so much to all our coaches and mentors for the guidance and wisdom imparted throughout the programme. We bring great inspiration to create a more meaningful impact on all our Home Buddies. Thanks so much!” said Cabatuando.

KakiRepair by KakiDIY

• Country: Malaysia
• Community Lead: Johnson Lam

Johnson Lam started KakiRepair in 2017 as a movement to encourage people to fix their stuff rather than throw them away. KakiRepair by KakiDIY is a collaborative platform powered by the community to post-repair related issues, diagnose, fix, and learn from one another. Its 47,000+ members actively post repair-related issues and constantly help each other solve problems and share best practices.

Today, KakiRepair has achieved notable achievements and hugely impacted the community and others. They created more than 50,000 PPE kits for frontline workers during the pandemic and refurbished and donated over 1,000 computers to underprivileged students. Other projects included helping flood repair missions wherein the community repaired more than 400 items for flood victims saving over RM 400,000 (US$90,000) of damages.

Kakirepair also won the Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation’s Innovator of the Year award. KakiRepair has continuously proven itself to be a community sourcing platform. 

During the accelerator program, it created a new knowledge management platform with more than 500 sign-ups. KakiRepair’s future programs include travelling nationwide in its MakerVan, a motorhome converted into a moving maker space.

Johnson Lam said: “Thank You for recognizing the results and validating the impact of KakiRepair on the community and environment. This will fuel us to do more and accelerate our plans further, bringing KakiRepair across the border to APAC and beyond.”

Scoliosis Philippines Support Group Inc. (ScoliosisPH)

• Country: the Philippines
• Community Lead: Amanda Glenda M Bonife-Kiamko

Amanda Glenda M Bonife-Kiamko created the Scoliosis Philippines Support Group on Facebook to raise awareness, help give scoliosis patients a forum to share their issues and stories, and provide psychosocial support. Its 31,000+ members have been able to connect with other patients and make them feel empowered through meetups, awareness events, learning sessions, and story sharing.

The Facebook Community program helped Scoliosis PH conduct strategic planning, launch learning and wellness programs, and establish partnerships with multiple partners. Scoliosis Philippines has grown with more than 35,300 members, and its community page has over 70,000 followers. It also aims to reach out to more patients through a newly established 17 regional chapters that engage, educate and empower through their programs and Special Interest Clubs. 

Also Read: How can you build a living, thriving community around your SaaS product?

Scoliosis PH built the Philippine Registry of Scoliosis Patients mobile app during the program. It is an initiative to support its goal of attaining equality, social justice, and rights for scoliosis patients and ensure that these rights are respected and guaranteed.

Bonife-Kiamko said, “Shout out and massive thanks to our excellent Meta, coach, e27 team and Ecosystem Partners, besides all the stakeholders involved. Thanks for mentoring and giving us this life-changing opportunity to learn, grow, and establish the Scoliosis Philippines Foundation, creating sustainable initiatives. Thank you to our APAC Cohort for inspiring us with your impactful communities and giving us sincere support throughout the program. It’s truly an honour to have shared this amazing journey with you all!”

Solo Female Travelers

• Country: Singapore
• Community lead: Mar Pages

Solo Female Travelers was started in 2015 as a place for women who love to travel independently to connect. The group empowers women to travel solo safely and on their terms via the communities, online resources, and women-only small group tours. The community has empowered thousands of women to take their first solo trip safely and confidently, breaking stereotypes, expectations, and barriers.

The Facebook program helped Solo Female Travelers to make numerous achievements and impacts — from increasing the community members to 150,000 members across different platforms. It also pioneered and supported more new travel destinations worldwide, made possible by additional team members from across the globe. It also has 92 per cent more page traffic growth. As such, the communities continue to bring impact in supporting women entrepreneurs through their partners and their work.

Mar Pages said, “Thanks to the Meta team and to my coach, Tamara, for supporting our dream and mission of empowering women through travel. You helped us bridge the gap between the seed of an idea and a growing tree. To my fellow Community Leaders, you inspire me every day to continue doing the work we do with passion and dedication, and you bring much light and positivity to my day.”

Final note

The six communities mentioned above were selected as the additional funding recipients from the original 19 communities who attended this year’s cohort (check out the other 13 communities and their leaders here). Each of these communities is considered the top in their respective countries. Each representative is an industry leader in their own capacity to turn their impactful ideas into action.

We would like to congratulate all the cohort members of the Facebook Community Accelerator 2021-2022 for amplifying their message to scalable and groundbreaking heights!  These communities have shown tremendous growth over the last month, and their work will continue to make an impact. 

If you are an organisation working on similar projects that align with our communities, reach out and engage with the community leaders for an exciting collaboration!

Visit the Meta Blog and the Facebook Community Accelerator Program official page for more information.

Disclaimer: All data and numbers are sourced from the community group data provided by Bike Scouts, Home Buddies, Bounce Back PH, Kakirepair, ScoliosisPH, and Solo Female Travelers.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Facebook Community Accelerator

The post Meet Facebook Community Accelerator 2022’s additional funding recipients who are turning impactful ideas into action appeared first on e27.

In Southeast Asia, 60 million new consumers joined the digital economy throughout the pandemic, representing 10 per cent of the total regional population pivoting to online services, including financial platforms.

Online services have been redefining the user experience, from ordering car rides to buying insurance to trading assets. Users can now access a myriad of services from the convenience of their phones in smart and effective ways. 

Led by the access provided by technology, the pandemic saw a new financial consciousness and ownership, led by younger generations and a rise in the retail investing trend. Today, retail investors make up nearly 25 per cent of overall stock market activity.

Reshaping online wealth management

Social investment platform eToro found digitalisation was a key driver to democratise access to capital markets.

Its recent Retail Investor Beat survey of 8,500 respondents across 12 countries showed that younger investors are leading in market participation by placing their trust in online investment platforms, now becoming the most popular method amongst those aged 18-34 (61 per cent).

Their increased reliance on smartphones has changed consumer habits and expectations, who now prefer online products for wealth management. This preference for a virtual set-up contrasts with older investors (aged 45-54) who prefer using a bank  (55 per cent).

With tech offering more access and new solutions, the elitist financial system will face significant challenges capturing younger demographics and future wealth holders. 

eToro’s research also found a ‘set and forget’ approach to investing is on the rise, with a third (37 per cent) of young investors believing that checking on their investments once a week is the ‘sweet spot’, and 32 per cent buying or selling their assets only once a month.

More mature demographics adopt a similar approach but are more inclined to hold their assets for longer, with one in four (24 per cent) selling only once a month.

Social as the new investment advisor

New sources of financial knowledge and advice are also gaining ground. While using recommendations from friends and family before investing remains the most popular source across demographics, 32 per cent of younger investors also seek financial advice from social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Also Read: The transition is now: these Web3 apps are transforming global finance

Their preference for these avenues is more than double that of their older counterparts, with only 15 per cent turning to social media and instead preferring (38 per cent) to traditional outlets such as newspapers.  Online forums are also gaining popularity, with nearly a quarter of those aged 18-34 looking at Twitter and Reddit for guidance.

Challenging the norms through access and education

Tech and digitalisation act as catalysts for inclusion and access in financial markets. We see younger demographics participating and recognising the importance of starting their investment journey sooner rather than later to set the foundations for their financial well being.

However, as democratisation increases, we also see a surge in financial disinformation as anyone with a smartphone can create content and share knowledge.

As social media and online forums become increasingly integrated into retail investors’ decision process, it is digital investment platforms’ responsibility to warn about the potential risks and create content and educate their users.

While reshaping expectations of online wealth management, digital investment platforms will continue to be a powerful tool to increase access to capital markets and increase financial wellbeing in Southeast Asia, but the sector will also need to understand they are not only financial enablers but must act as financial educators, and complement investors’ research.

Today’s leading companies have made the most of technology and innovation, challenging norms of traditional finance and must engage and educate users in new ways.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post How millennial investors are taking control of their wealth creation appeared first on e27.

Artificial intelligence or AI is a wide-ranging solution that is slowly but significantly disrupting the world of business. How AI impacts businesses range from how we integrate information to how we analyse data, and how we leverage the resulting insights to improve decision-making, resulting in lowering costs, increasing their productivity and enhancing their revenue streams.

Key stakeholders all over the world recognise the potential and importance of AI. The global AI Governance market was valued at USD 107.56 million in 2021 and is expected to reach a value of USD 528.06 million by 2027, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.97% over the forecast period 2022-2027. 

These trends can be seen emerging in the APAC region as businesses start to realise the importance of AI in today’s digital-first landscape. According to a recent report, Asia Pacific’s market for AI is set to grow at a CAGR of 41.60% over the forecast period of 2019-2027. Several reports have also indicated that AI is one area where APAC can lead the rest of the world.

One of the main drivers for growth for AI in business in APAC is enhancing consumer behaviour and expectations. As we inch further into the digital decade, consumers are increasingly engaging brands online and they expect a certain level of personalisation. In Singapore alone, research has unveiled that over 70 per cent of consumers want a better customer experience — specifically, one that treats them as individuals instead of just any other customer. And this can be achieved with AI.

Also read: PikoHANA: Helping Singapore startups scale through fractional finance

Adopting AI, however, can be challenging for companies, especially young startups and SMEs that may lack the knowledge and expertise in the field and might not have the resources, to hire dedicated teams because of specialisation, Work From Home (WFH), many companies now have remote and outsourced teams working in many different places. As such, there is a dire need to enhance the capabilities of software developers and facilitate better collaboration between teams of software developers and business users to future proof their business.

This is where Singapore-based AI API microservice provider Sentient.io is helping companies adopt AI easily and prepare their business for the future. Sentient.io aims to change the narrative of AI adoption by providing ready-to-use domain-specific AI algorithms for teams of application software developers in companies to consume via APIs.

Sentient.io: Addressing the challenges of AI adoption to help businesses grow

Christopher Yeo, founder and CEO of Sentient.io is fascinated with the impact of computer science, especially artificial intelligence on the future of humanity and how it is going to change our lives. With over 20 years of experience in database technologies, data warehousing, data mining, operations research and internet systems integration, Yeo strongly believes that AI is going to change the world of business forever.

“AI allows businesses to make better decisions, improving the core business processes by increasing the speed and accuracy of strategic decision-making processes. AI Technology helps boost the drive toward digital transformation for enterprises. AI enables human capabilities such as reasoning, understanding, planning, and communication — to be undertaken by software more effectively and efficiently. All of these help people to create new opportunities, free humans from repetitive work, and focus on creative work,” he says.

Also read: Deep tech startups gain multi-pronged support from Leave a Nest

Sentient.io enables software developers to build AI and data solutions quickly and easily by offering domain targeted AI and data as API microservices. It runs on the 4 pillars of making AI natural and intelligent where it can be easily integrated into daily life while constantly adapting and developing. Hence, the startup’s tagline: ‘Naturally Intelligent’. 

“We know that many companies have challenges to adopt AI to increase productivity, save costs and enhance revenue streams, Sentient.io has created an AI platform to help software developers quickly and easily access AI models via APIs, which accelerates their AI adoption,” explains Yeo. “Sentient.io enables developers and enterprises to seamlessly add AI capabilities to their software at fast speeds,” he adds.

Leveraging AI to foster a collaborative environment

There has always been a keen emphasis on collaborations and partnerships in the world of business. However, in the light of a prolonged global health pandemic that has changed the face of business and the economy forever, there has been an increased focus on innovation through collaboration. Several studies and reports have found that collaboration is going to be key in a post-pandemic future. Many companies need to cope with WFH, as well as multiple remote and outsourced teams. 

As such, Sentient.io’s TeamSpaces, an extended feature of the AI and Data platform, serves to address the issue of collaboration on the cloud, providing a dedicated space for companies to collaborate on AI solutions. Many companies have separate remote programming teams, TeamSpaces allow all these remote teams to collaborate around datasets and AI models.

TeamSpaces is based on creating a sandbox in a secure environment. Space owners can create tiers of management which allow for multiple organisations to exist and different roles for collaboration. Users or TeamSpaces have access to ready-to-use AI microservices from the Sentient.io Platform which saves them time to search from external sources or build from scratch. In addition, TeamSpace owners can upload their own microservices/datasets in order to fulfil their own organizational needs.

Take the next step into the future with Sentient.io’s TeamSpaces

From young startups or SMEs to established enterprises, any business looking to recruit the best data scientists or AI engineers or seeking a vibrant ecosystem of innovation partners can benefit from TeamSpaces. The assistance provided by TeamSpaces is undeniable and invaluable. Mastering collaboration and embracing efficiency made possible by this truly collaborative workspace, companies can count on both internal and external support, backed by a secure and conducive environment.

Also read: Behind the scenes of oVice: a leading remote work solution

In addition, TeamSpaces affords a safe and secure sandbox for corporate data, meaning that companies do not have to worry about potential data leaks as they use the feature. With the use of Role Based Access Control (RBAC), the owner of the space can assign different rights to different members to ensure security within the collaboration space. Access to data is also controlled by authorised API keys to ensure that sensitive data stays accessible to certain individuals only. Data on the collaboration space is also encrypted, providing an extra layer of security against outside parties.

With subscription plans or license fees that are available in the public cloud or private cloud/on-premise setups respectively, Sentient.io’s TeamSpaces is available at affordable prices, with packages that cater to specific industries and needs. Past use-cases of TeamSpaces have led to decreased costs of up to 50 per cent, as well as increased productivity and innovation. 

To learn more about Sentient.io’s TeamSpaces, visit https://www.sentient.io/teamspaces to ask for a demo. To explore other Sentient.io AI-as-a-service tools and solutions, log on to https://www.sentient.io/en/ or contact joshua@sentient.io

– –

This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Sentient.io

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

The post Sentient.io: Empowering businesses in the region by making AI adoption easy and affordable appeared first on e27.

Indonesia’s largest poultry-tech startup Pitik has secured US$14 million in a Series A round of financing led by Alpha JWC Ventures with participation from existing investors MDI Ventures and Wavemaker Partners.

Pitik will continue developing advanced technologies and farm automation products to increase farm productivity with this new funding. It also targets to build a presence in all areas of Java this year and expand to other islands in 2023.

The startup will also grow its business to downstream services such as processing and distribution to end-users.

“Our big dream is to empower all poultry farmers in Indonesia through our integrated services and make sure we can improve their livelihood. This funding round will enable us to reach out to more farmers, drive further innovation, and unlock additional efficiency gains for farmers,” said Co-Founder and CEO Arief Witjaksono.

Also Read: Pitik nets funding from Arise, Wavemaker

Launched in mid-2021 by serial entrepreneurs Witjaksono and Rymax Joehana, Pitik provides farmers with full-stack farm management technology to improve productivity. Upon joining Pitik ecosystem, all farms are installed with IoT systems. They are also given access to its smart app to facilitate real-time farm monitoring and instant issue identification through its algorithm.

Beyond technology, Pitik leverages its ecosystem to supply quality farm input to farmers, provide financing services, and offtake the harvest with “the best prices and guaranteed payment terms”.

In the past six months, Pitik claims to have increased its farm network size by over 10x by partnering with hundreds of farmers in 53 West and Central Java districts. The poultry-tech firm sells over 16 million chickens annually from this network of farmers.

Last December, Pitik announced an undisclosed seed raise co-led by Arise and Wavemaker Partners.

—

Ready to meet new startups to invest in? We have more than hundreds of startups ready to connect with potential investors on our platform. Create or claim your Investor profile today and turn on e27 Connect to receive requests and fundraising information from them.

The post Pitik nets US$14M Series A to provide automation solutions to Indonesia’s poultry farmers appeared first on e27.

Many small businesses never consider protecting their network until a breach has happened. Even then, the majority of them only focus on the network and infrastructure, leaving some of the most vulnerable elements, the endpoint devices unprotected.

Endpoint is any device that serves as a source or destination for communication through a network. Servers, desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and printers are all considered endpoint devices.

As the result of the growing trend toward remote work and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, the endpoint has played an increasingly important role in cybersecurity. 

Endpoint security is part of a comprehensive cybersecurity programme that is fast becoming a must-have for all businesses, regardless of size.

What is endpoint security?

Endpoint security is a cybersecurity solution that secures endpoint devices connected to the internet through your network.

Endpoint security solutions use an endpoint protection platform (EPP), which is installed on endpoints, to protect against malware and other intrusions. An EPP may be combined with an endpoint detection and response (EDR) platform that focuses on monitoring, threat detection, and responses.

Endpoint security can use the client-server model (on-premises) for the internal protection of a company’s enterprise or be web-based Security-as-a-Service (SECaaS).

What’s the difference between endpoint security and antivirus?

While endpoint security is often associated with antivirus, they are not the same thing. Endpoint security software includes antivirus, but also many other tools for protecting your business.

Also Read: How much does cybersecurity cost and how to budget for it?

Antivirus software simply detects and removes known viruses. Endpoint security offers a variety of tools and functionality that protect your company’s devices, network, and data. 

Here are just some of the features endpoint security can have:

• Blocking malicious websites
• Identifying phishing emails
• Stopping dangerous applications
• Running unknown programmes in a safe ‘sandbox’ environment
• Scanning Wi-Fi networks for vulnerabilities
• Protecting files and folders from being accessed or encrypted by any programmes not explicitly whitelisted (labelled as ‘safe’).  

Because of these additional features, endpoint security solutions are better able to protect against a variety of threats, including ransomware attacks and phishing scams, that often have an easy time getting through traditional antivirus.

Why is endpoint security so important?

Endpoint security is critical to protect your network and its information from data breaches and avoid financial losses due to costly remediation efforts and regulatory penalties. 

Here are the top three reasons endpoint security is crucial:

Remote Workforce

More people than ever are working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The internet has made working from home or working from everywhere extremely easy. But it does open the company’s network to more cyber threats, and the need for a secure network on-the-go is becoming more important than ever.

Reliance on the Internet of Things (IoT)

Beyond endpoints devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) includes other interrelated computing devices — sensors, closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, and environmental controls — that transfer data over a network with no human interaction. The result is more access points for potential data breaches.

Evolving of Ransomware

Cybercriminals use ransomware to demand payment from a victim under the threat of publishing sensitive data or permanently blocking access to it. These attacks have grown in frequency since 2012.

The hacking team demonstrated world-class capabilities to disregard security tools and forensic examination, proving that anybody can be hacked. Also, the year 2021 is already witnessing a bump in COVID-19 vaccine-related phishing attacks.

How to get suitable endpoint security for your small business needs?

Even small businesses now are practising remote or hybrid workspace, cybersecurity becomes increasingly complex, it requires a network and security protocols that aren’t limited by distance.

Furthermore, hacker techniques are continually evolving, requiring businesses to be on the leading edge of cybersecurity technologies.

Also Read: Better cyber safe than sorry: Don’t wait till you’re hacked

While many small businesses may not have the budget for an in-house IT department, they can outsource to Managed Service Providers (MSP) or subscribe to Security-as-a-Service (SECaaS) like ArmourZero, which you just need to pay a flat fee based on the unit price, depending on the service you subscribed to, with no other hidden installation or service cost.

MSP and SECaaS companies have serious talent with deep and leading-edge technology knowledge, bringing your company the advantage of up-to-date evolving threats.

They will constantly monitor, upgrade, and update your system as your business grows and the attack landscape shifts, ensuring your system from endpoints to infrastructure is protected.

Don’t risk your business by leaving endpoints unprotected. Touch base with your cybersecurity consultant today and learn to optimise your IT infrastructure and protect it from malicious actors, inside and out.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post Why is endpoint security so important for small businesses? appeared first on e27.

Today, the name of the game is automation. If your business is not embracing the power of automation then, like the proverbial weakest buffalo of the herd, you are going to get left behind and die.

To make sure that you don’t find yourself at the back of the pack, I’m going to be teaching you about the power of email sequences.

We all know how powerful email marketing can be. But imagine if you could reap all the benefits of email marketing without having to lift a finger? Because that’s what happens when you combine automation with email marketing. You get the ability to generate more leads, conversions, and sales, while you sleep!

To really stress the importance of why you need to embrace email sequences now I’m going to throw a few fun facts at you.

• Fun Fact #1: According to Salesforce businesses that take advantage of email automation average a 32 per cent boost in sales and revenue compared to those that don’t.
• Fun Fact #2: According to Campaign Monitor for every US$1 spent on email marketing an average of US$44 is made in return.
• Fun Fact #3: According to a survey by Venture Beat 80 per cent of respondents reported an increase in leads after automating their sales pipeline, and 77 per cent saw their overall conversions increase

Now if that doesn’t sound good to you then I don’t know what will. But, just in case, you’re not entirely convinced then here’s one last fun fact:

• Fun Fact #4: As of 2017, on average, 51 per cent of businesses have integrated some form of automation for their sales and marketing. Another 58 per cent of B2B businesses have a plan in place to adopt automation technology within the following year.

So if you haven’t started using email sequences then you’re already behind the curve, but I’m here to help you catch up and come out on top.

What’s in an email sequence?

Before getting into the meat of things, let’s quickly make sure we’re all on the same wavelength regarding what is and isn’t email sequences.

You may have heard similar terms during your travels such as email automation, drip campaigns, or sales cadence for example. What they all essentially boil down to is creating a strategically automated process with your emails. Where, based on specific triggers of your own choosing, you’ll automatically send off a specific series of emails.

Also Read: The 5 elements of the perfect cold email

Anytime you’ve received a welcome email from signing up to a newsletter, or been sent an email receipt of your latest purchase, you have been witnessing email sequences in action.

What I’m here to talk to you about today is how you can use email sequences to help you prospect more cold leads, nurture pre-existing leads, and in general help, you automate those time-consuming tasks that keep you away from selling.

Qualify leads and prospects

One of the most time-consuming sales tasks in the world is cold outreach. I cannot even begin to tell you the number of mornings I’ve spent sending out email after email, continuously copying and pasting the same thing over and over again. It commits the double sin of not only being incredibly mind-numbingly boring but also wasting huge amounts of time.

And while sinning, in general, can lead to a whole host of fun and shenanigans, in this scenario, it’s more tedious than anything else.

With email sequences, you can vastly cut back on the amount of time you spend sending out cold emails and quite literally double your results. Just ask the folks at Innovation Asset Group, who saw a 400 per cent increase in their sales pipeline by automating their cold outreach process.

How this works is very simple:

You have to create three or so emails for your sequence. You have your initial outreach email and a minimum of two follow-up emails. From there you can create a process where anytime a lead doesn’t answer your initial outreach email your follow-up email will automatically be sent, and if they don’t reply to that then the next email will automatically be sent.

The amount of time between each email can vary between different individuals and teams, but you can see how this drastically reduces the amount of time following up with cold leads.

By using this incredibly simple email sequence you never have to worry about following up with cold leads again as it’s all being done for you automatically in the background. You only have to worry about the people who bother responding to your outreach in the first place.

This way you can focus on actually having real conversations with real people, instead of copying and pasting the same bit of text from sun-up to sun-down.

Never lose momentum again

As all salespeople know, anytime a prospect shows interest you have a limited amount of time to follow up and connect with them before they lose interest in your business.

According to Harvard Business Review, on average, companies take up to 42 hours to respond to an online sales lead. This is shocking, especially when you consider that prospects are seven times more likely to become qualified leads when contacted within the hour of expressing interest.

But until we find a way to stay awake for 24 hours every day that doesn’t involve the violation of several statutes of the Geneva convention; salespeople can’t reasonably be expected to respond to each and every single inquiry within the hour.

This is when an autoresponder can come in pretty handy.

Anytime a lead shows interest in booking a consult, a demo, or a call, you can have a process where they are immediately sent a follow-up email within the minute, let alone the hour. Add in strong CTA and a scheduler, and you’ve drastically improved your chances of converting those inbound leads into sales.

Also Read: The key digital marketing tips to help small businesses thrive

According to GetResponse’s Email Marketing Benchmark report, triggered emails like the one I described above average a 45 per cent open rate.

Even if they aren’t interested in speaking with a salesperson yet, you can still ensure that you’re nurturing that lead with your email sequence. If they don’t book a call, then set up your email sequence so that they’ll automatically be sent content relevant to their interests.

Add in some personalisation tokens, and a few details unique to them to really increase your chances of getting a response. To maximise your results consider using including these sales email templates we’ve already prepared for you.

Keep leads engaged, no matter what

There are times when a lead will just go cold. The reasons behind this are about as numerous as the number of regrettable tattoos on Adam Levine.

Having a lead ghost on you sucks, but that doesn’t mean that you should give up on following up. Master entrepreneur James Altucher once emailed a billionaire investor for over a year before finally getting a response. I’m saying that you keep going until you get a response. Even if it’s a no, you don’t stop until you get an answer.

It’s almost an epidemic the number of salespeople that use something like Excel or Google Sheets to keep track of who they should follow up and when. Save yourself the trouble and set up an automated sales cadence built specifically for following up with ghost leads.

The general rule of thumb is that you don’t want to follow up any more than six times if you’ve never interacted with that person before. Following that, set up an email sequence with six emails spaced out over a couple of months.

This way, you can be sure that you’re constantly following up with them. The great thing about email automation is that you can schedule all of your emails ahead of time, leaving you free to focus on other leads. If they never end up replying to any of the emails, then too bad; move on; at least you’ve disqualified a bad customer.

But before you even get to that point, you can make sure you’re constantly engaging and nurturing your leads. Keep your leads warm by creating an email drip campaign that ensures you’re always staying at the top of their mind.

Create an automated email campaign dedicated solely to delivering relevant content to their inboxes. Don’t allow for a break in communication. That is the key to sales email automation. Depending on what pages they’ve visited, what lead magnets they’ve downloaded, or what webinars they’ve attended, create email sequences triggered by these specific actions.

Also Read: How Intelligent Automation can help power the future workplace

This way, you can ensure that, no matter what, your audience is constantly being engaged with things that interest them.

Conclusion

What is your most valuable resource?

It’s not money. It’s your time. What you do with the time you have ultimately dictates whether or not you’ll be successful.

With that in mind, why on earth would you waste your time on something like manual data entry? You are in sales, are you not?

To make the most out of your time, you need to embrace the power of automation. It isn’t some far-off future technology like jetpacks, and flying cars; automation is already here and if you’re not taking advantage of it by now then you’re already falling behind.

By embracing email sequences as part of your sales strategy not only are you going to save yourself more time to work on things that actually matter? But you’re going to double your efficiency and success rate effectively.

When it comes to doing cold outreach, following up, and qualifying leads, you don’t need to be wasting your time with them anymore. As I’ve just demonstrated, they can easily be automated, and it’s so easy that you can quite literally do it right now.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post How to use email sequences to win more B2B sales deals appeared first on e27.

A number of reasons for which the 17th of May 2022 is memorable, as we wake to the biggest drop in equities since the pandemic, Bitcoin is below 30,000 for the first time in almost a year, and TerraUSD (UST) has lost its peg and dropped down to US$0.1.

Let’s focus on the last one for a minute.

Stable coins are a necessary bridge into traditional finance when dealing with crypto products and hold a familiar store of cash value for all investors exiting and hedging positions against crypto.

For anyone that’s been following me for any time at all, you may be aware that I’ve been a very vocal critic of stable coins, especially during my time at CACHE. Admittedly our motives for uncovering the scammy nature of our stable(ish)-coin competitors as part of our mandate, but this didn’t stop us from bringing to light the fractional reserve nature of what was meant to be the go-to crypto to “store” fiat on-chain.

Enter the algorithmic stable coin. Terra isn’t the first to attempt at building a stable coin entirely backed by other cryptocurrencies, using a minting and burning mechanism as well as staking incentives to keep the value (more or less) pegged to US$1.

Bennett Tomlin had a great way of putting this, “Algorithmic stable coins, in general, are all a well-coordinated game trying to convince a sufficient mass of people that a thing that has no reason to be valuable is definitely valuable.”

The concept is quite simple for stable coins like Terra that Luna governs. You can exchange US$1 worth of the underlying Luna for Terra and vice versa. As simple as the idea sounds, the math doesn’t add up unless everyone believes the underlying asset is valuable. To quote one of my favourite classics, “the whole point […] is lost if you keep it a secret!”

Also Read: DeFi protocols were top hacking target in 2021: Report

If any of this reminds you of how fiat currency works, you’re dead-on.

In most countries, the value of their currency is represented by a basket of goods, also known as the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which fluctuates with inflation. The price of goods is not centrally set in our (mostly) post-communist world; supply and demand take care of true price discovery.

However, our Central Banks do set interest rates; higher rates make borrowing expensive and encourage saving, and lower rates encourage borrowing and spending.

Here’s where the incentive part comes in.

Mining for bitcoin incentivises processing power allocation, and staking Ethereum incentivise holding; these are vital for the infrastructure of the protocols and incentivise productive behaviour. Algorithmic stable-coin stability relies on the belief that the tokens held in their treasury are worth something.

Faith is good, but incentives have had a more trustworthy track record.

So:

• Terra’s Anchor Protocol offers up to 20 per cent in savings/staking interest/returns.
• Olympus offers 467 per cent staking returns (down from over 7000 per cent).

The goal here is to build a system over time that is too big to fail and to hit the inflection point at which the governing token holds value out of mere adoption, similar to how Bitcoin and Ethereum’s tendencies gravitate around a certain price over extended periods. These large incentives may seem attractive but are rarely feasible over time.

One of the main issues with inflection points of success in models like this one is that they don’t tend to account for risk parameters outside of three standard deviations on each side of the mean. Once prices, demand, or supply fluctuate outside of three standard deviations, the model breaks into uncharted territory.

Bring in the assets!

The USP for tokenising assets is quite simple– bringing liquidity to illiquid markets.

Now, this isn’t a new idea; as a matter of fact, ETFs were the first real attempt in 1990 and were considered a massive failure, raising a mere US$11 million. 30 years later and globally, assets in ETFs and other exchange-traded products (ETPs) total more than US$6.5 trillion, invested in more than 7,430 products.

Asset-backed tokens can broadly be categorised into four subsections:

• Equity
• Debt
• Utility
• Physical-assets

If these seem familiar, you likely weren’t living under a rock a couple of years ago and remember ICOs. Back in 2017/2018, Initial Coin Offerings took the developing crypto world for a spin. Giving anyone with a half-baked idea, a whitepaper, and a website the opportunity to access millions in investments.

Ideas ranged from sustainability-focused ventures to inventors and innovative ideas to clear-cut scams. It didn’t take long for regulators to step in and consider these kinds of token securities, and dealing in securities requires licensing.

Also Read: The unrealised importance of DeFi in fixed-income securities investments

Let’s remember how the Supreme court determines whether an investment is security; the now-famous Howey Test’s four criteria:

• The existence of an investment contract
• The formation of a common enterprise
• A promise of profits by the issuer
• The use of a third party to promote the offering

Enter STOs: Security Token Offerings; tokenised digital securities traded on token exchanges. Now, this opens a few doors for DeFi and TradFi to find a common playground.

All the TradFi comforts of traditional assets (and new ones) given the modern infrastructure of DeFi products, with the new capabilities and efficiencies of blockchain products.

The limits to what can be tokenised are endless. From gold and physical commodities (shoutout to CACHE) to private investments, such as funds, real estate, and even digital assets (shoutout to InvestaX).

Now STOs may just seem like regulated ICOs, but they come with applications that far outweigh the volatile risk of traditional blockchain products. There are endless efficiency optimisation opportunities for traditional finance and products with a trail of owners dating back to origination, KYC requirements built into tokens, true price discovery on continuously traded secondary markets. Of course, complex structured products built directly on-chain.

One of the core problems with structured products on-chain so far has been the volatile nature of the governing tokens. With asset-backed tokens, 150 per cent collateral for a loan would no longer be needed. What if your token was backed by real estate? Or a brick of gold held in a vault in Switzerland? Or a successful business?

Traditional finance already addresses these needs and builds these products through a simple centralised entity: a bank. Blockchain allows us to democratise access to capital. It will enable us to build financial products and grant access to any relevant parties, regardless of geographic location, without losing efficiencies to manual processing.

A common infrastructure gives us the opportunity to build interconnected markets, allowing for true price discovery for otherwise illiquid markets such as carbon credits, real estate, cars, antiques and private company interests.

As we push forward into decentralised finance, we need to be willing to port existing needs and products on-chain to make room for new products more apt to our modern needs.

Special thanks to Michael Lints and Brian Hankey for checking the draft.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post What is the next big step in DeFi? appeared first on e27.