Tag: Digitalisation

Singapore – Recommerce platform Carousell and corporate card and finance management platform YouBiz have announced a strategic partnership to help local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups accelerate their business growth with digitalisation tools and resources.

The partnership between the two platforms serves as a unique collaboration that aims to help SMEs maximise their resources and save on business expenses as they digitalise their operations.

To start, YouBiz has been helping over 3,000 businesses save annually by eliminating unnecessary administrative fees, coupled with its promise of 0% FX fee, unlimited cashback and seamlessly integrated digital solutions. These substantial savings allow SMEs to reinvest in their growth, and enhance their offerings and reach which ultimately creates a more vibrant and resilient business landscape.

As part of the partnership, Carousell merchants get to enjoy a 10% upsized cashback for their CarouBiz package and Carousell coins, while YouBiz users are offered an exclusive 20% rebate for their purchase of Carousell coins.

Beyond helping SMEs save costs, Carousell and YouBiz are also committed to empowering business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs with the knowledge they need to stay ahead in the digital economy.

Talking about the partnership, Johnny Lim, regional head of sales and business director of Carousell, said, “We are thrilled to partner with YouBiz, combining our reach of 1 in Singaporeans as active monthly users and YouBiz’s expertise in financial solutions, to help small local businesses and success in today’s fast-paced business landscape. Digitalisation is pivotal, and this collaboration exemplifies our commitment to provide simple-to-use and convenient ways for anyone to digitise their business.” 

Meanwhile, Kelvin Lam, chief operating officer of YouBiz by YouTrip, said, “Our partnership with Carousell is a strategic one that aims to equip SMEs with cost-saving tools and resources that help them accelerate their cross-border growth in this digital economy age. We are excited to be working with Carousell to support the growth of SMEs in the region. With our combined expertise and offerings, we can help more businesses tap into new markets and opportunities.”

Singapore – Amidst economic headwinds, Asia’s digital economies continue to post impressive gains, with cross-border initiatives and tools offering businesses new avenues to unlock unprecedented growth, according to the latest report by market intelligence firm IDC and commissioned by global payments platform 2C2P and Ant Group.

Data from IDC’s report mainly suggests that SEA leads in digital economy growth at 15.8% for the next five years, unlocking significant commerce opportunities for SEA and outpacing the United States and Europe.

Coupled with Korea and Japan, SEA’s digital economy is on the verge of explosive growth, projected to skyrocket from $501.7 billion in 2022 to a staggering $914.9 billion in 2027, marking an impressive 82% leap in just five years.

SEA also anticipates a 100% expansion in the e-commerce market, driven by accelerated digital payments growth, led by ‘buy now pay later’ options (38%), mobile wallet (18.9%), domestic payment (16.9%) and credit cards (14.4%).

Furthermore, private and public sector efforts are poised to inject an impressive $232.4 billion in fresh cross-border revenue into the SEA, Korea, and Japan economies from 2022 to 2027, as cross-border e-commerce revenue is primed to grow by 70% in those five years, outpacing the growth of domestic e-commerce revenue.

Talking about the results, Aung Kyaw Moe, founder and CEO of 2C2P, said, “Our mission at 2C2P is to empower businesses to navigate and thrive in the dynamic payment landscape in Asia. We hope the findings of this report encourage businesses to unlock the immense potential of Asia’s digital economies by tapping on existing public-and private-sector initiatives and tools.”

Meanwhile, Douglas Feagin, senior vice-president of Ant Group and head of cross-border mobile payment services at Alipay+, commented, “The rapid rise in the number and diversity of digital payment options presents a challenge  for small to mid-sized merchants. Which is why it is now imperative for businesses to cater positively to these digital habits, and I believe that by working together, we can help more consumers and businesses benefit from digitalisation.”

Singapore – Asian food and grocery delivery network foodpanda has partnered with Singapore-based AI provider TabSquare to introduce new digital solutions for restaurants, including QR code-based ordering and AI-enabled predictive analytics.

Under parent company Delivery Hero, the two brands are working with restaurants in Asia starting with Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan in digitising their orders, payments, and customer engagement-related processes.

Using TabSquare, foodpanda’s restaurant partners can digitise analog items and automate tasks, enabling restaurants to be more time-efficient in the ordering process as customers can use digital menus to browse, order and pay at their pace and convenience.

Restaurants within foodpanda’s range also get a competitive advantage in customer engagement and retention thanks to TabSquare’s AI analytics, offering useful insights using a ton of aggregated data from customers’ shopping histories. The trends in price sensitivity, volume, and menu choices can be applied in a variety of situations once they have been found.

Commenting on this new venture, Jakob Angele, APAC CEO of foodpanda, comments that with this technology, they want to play a part in as many of their customers’ food interactions as possible.

“Moving into QR ordering in restaurants was therefore a very natural choice for us. It allows us to offer great benefits to our 500,000 restaurants, helping them with their profitability by serving their customers better. I am absolutely convinced that in five years from now, restaurants worldwide will be using QR code-based ordering and paper menus will be a memory of the past,” he added. 

Meanwhile, Anshul Gupta, co-founder of TabSquare, also said: “TabSquare has always tried to be at the forefront of innovation in the industry by bringing AI-powered solutions to boost restaurants’ revenue, streamline operations, and offer a better dining experience to their guests. With foodpanda, we will be bringing many new innovative features to the industry, for example, restaurants working with TabSquare can now promote themselves to foodpanda’s large customer base and attract new customers.”

Singapore – Global beverage company Coca-cola and super-app Grab have teamed up to unlock growth opportunities in a booming digital consumer market within Southeast Asia. The partnership will bank on Coca-Cola’s extensive offline retail presence and Grab’s large online network.

Both companies will also collaborate on impact initiatives to accelerate digital skilling for merchants and promote convenience and an array of beverage choices for consumers.

The landmark partnership spans six Southeast Asian countries including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. However, the partnership in Thailand covers all areas except GrabFood.

The partnership revolves around four objectives, namely growing with merchants through GrabFood and GrabMart, engaging consumers in refreshing ways through GrabAds, enhancing support for small, traditional merchants through digitalisation, and using both company’s combined scale to do good in Southeast Asia.

Sam Way, head of offline to online at Coca-Cola ASEAN & South Pacific, said, “At Coca-Cola, we are transforming our business model for the digital age. This new multi-market partnership extends our online reach and enables us to stay ahead of changing shopper trends as we drive customer value and growth through digital enablement.” 

He added, “We are thrilled to be collaborating with a forward-thinking company like Grab and we look forward to working closely to build new consumer connections and offer a new level of convenience to digital consumers in the region.”

Meanwhile, Saad Ahmed, regional head of merchant at Grab, commented, “We are very excited to be Coca-Cola’s preferred partner in Southeast Asia. This partnership also reflects our shared commitment to support merchants to further grow their business through digitalisation and financial services.” 

He added, “By enabling them to capture new and unmet consumer demand, we enable them to provide better services to our users. This in turn strengthens brand love for Grab and Coca-Cola.”

Singapore – To celebrate foodpanda’s 10 years of operations in Asia, the q-commerce platform has launched its new regional headquarters in Singapore. This new headquarters houses 1,200 employees from its regional and local operational teams, plus the company’s global tech hub.

foodpanda said that Singapore has always been a base and test market for innovation and new product development. Amongst the features beta-launched in Singapore were foodpanda’s cloud store network pandamart and on-demand retail marketplace foodpanda shops – leading Asia’s push into q-commerce, as early as 2019. Singapore was also the first market to roll out proof-of-concept drone deliveries in partnership with ST Engineering, as well as foodpanda’s Logistics-as-a-Service feature, pandago in 2020, offering express doorstep deliveries to customers.

Moreover, the platform has launched its ‘PowerUp! Tech Academy’, which aims to enable the next decade of growth, building up a strong tech core. Unlike a localised R&D facility, the foodpanda PowerUp! Tech Academy will use Delivery Hero’s global knowledge base in Singapore to power the tech and innovation ecosystem. It comprises programmes and partnerships to grow the local tech talent pool, upskill riders, and help merchants digitalise.

foodpanda, together with its parent company Delivery Hero’s Delivery Hero Ventures, has also invested more than SG$120m in Singapore-based regional tech start-ups including Toku, Flash Coffee, and Omnistream.

Jakob Angele, CEO of foodpanda, said that Singapore has proven to be a dynamic hub for foodpanda’s operations in the region, and they expect to see more innovations to be launched from Singapore into the regional markets.

“Initiatives like our foodpanda PowerUp! Tech Academy is essential to our long-term plans, as we nurture more of Asia’s tech talent, build the ecosystem and grow Asia’s digital economy,” added Angele.

Jakarta, Indonesia – ​Indonesia-based telco Telkom has partnered with tech giant Microsoft to accelerate Indonesia’s digitalisation and strengthen intelligent infrastructure. This partnership is a continuation of the memorandum of understanding signed by Telkom and Microsoft in August 2021.

The partnership aims to support Telkom’s vision as the digital telecommunications company of choice in order to advance society and empower the country’s digital economy, as well as support Microsoft’s Empower Indonesia initiative. It will also explore new opportunities in the market, and empower organisations in various industry segments by leveraging the telco’s infrastructure.

Moreover, the partnership will see Telkom accelerating the level of enterprise adoption of cloud-based services and a secure cloud environment, as well as increasing competence through training and Microsoft certification. This will help TelkomGroup to increase employee productivity, simplify the collaboration process, automate work processes, increase customer engagement, and create innovation, as well as increase the efficiency of operational activities safely.

In terms of intelligent infrastructure, Telkom and Microsoft will also collaborate in developing national intelligent infrastructure. The cooperation being explored, for example, includes the use of Telkom’s Hyperscale Data Center infrastructure assets to support the country’s digital transformation journey and several operational activities for Microsoft’s upcoming data centre region in Indonesia as announced in 2021.

Ririek Adriansyah, Telkom’s president director, shared that the initiative to establish strategic partnerships with a number of global tech companies is expected to have a positive impact on Telkom’s business development, especially in the digital platform and digital services domain.

“We really welcome this collaboration with Microsoft in the hope that it will not only bring benefits to both parties, but more importantly, it can provide the greatest benefit to the digitisation of Indonesia,” said Adriansyah.

Meanwhile, Dharma Simorangkir, Microsoft’s president director for Indonesia, said, “Technology is the cornerstone of industrial digital transformation. Through strengthening collaboration with Telkom, we hope to be able to further assist Indonesia in every stage of the national digital transformation, and build personalised services that bring us closer to Digital Indonesia.”