Tag: SMEs

Singapore – Aon, a global professional services firm which provides a broad range of risk, retirement, and health solutions, and Singapore-headquartered Doerscircle, an all-in-one services platform dedicated for startups, have entered into a collaboration to provide insurance solutions to the often underserved workforce of entrepreneurs, startuppers, and freelancers. The partnership will initially target Asia, and solutions will be offered through Doerscircle’s platform.

According to the information by the companies, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore account for two-thirds of all employment and contribute to close to S$200 billion to the Singaporean economy. 

Meanwhile, on a global scale, despite the World Bank’s recent findings that almost 50% of the global workforce is self-employed, access and affordability continue to be a challenge as traditional insurance plans are not usually designed to fit the needs of the self-employed.

Aon and Doerscircle aim to address these pain points and at the same time, leverage the economical contribution of this demographic of workers. The collaboration will see the development of commercial, risk, and health insurance solutions to answer the needs of smaller enterprises and independent workers, enabling them to focus on growing their business instead of spending time and energy on understanding and managing insurance issues.

Members of Doerscircle will be able to have access to tailored insurance solutions through a streamlined online process on the Doerscircle platform.

Over time, Doerscircle aims to extend these offerings to include more products and countries, leveraging Aon’s broad network, risk management expertise, and global capabilities.

“The current business and economic environment are changing the way people work. We are excited to collaborate with Doerscircle to address the specific insurance needs of this key segment of independent workers,” said Tobias Schneider, head of financial institutions and SME of Affinity Asia unit at Aon.

Meanwhile, Doerscircle founder Helle Priess said, “Doerscircle aims to challenge the status quo and reshape the world for independent doers – entrepreneurs, startuppers and freelancers. We strongly believe that insurance solutions should be accessible, relevant, easy to understand, and transparent. We’re thrilled that Aon has the same vision. We’re confident that together, we will set new standards in insurance offerings for independent doers.”

Singapore – When COVID-19 struck, its catastrophic blow on businesses spared no industry. There are definitely sectors that are more hard-hit than others, but every business had a fair share of economic decline.

Amid the pandemic, one industry that has not been thoroughly checked on as others is the entertainment industry, and a survey by live events and entertainment company Branded revealed that senior executives are quite bullish on business despite having to deal with pandemic-induced disruptions. 

The study captured the views of more than 60 movers and shakers, and C-suite decision makers in the entertainment industry. It found that 58% of bosses feel confident in the performance of the sector over the next six months, while 23% described their business to be in a current state of decline. 

Executives also demonstrated continued optimism when asked about how long they expect the effects of COVID-19 to last on business. A large portion, 70%, feel that the perennial effects of Covid-19 will only last between one and two years, with just 17% feeling it will last from two to five years. 

The study also revealed that smaller businesses, those with annual turnover of US$1m or less, feel significantly more bullish on their future market performance than larger businesses of US$6m or greater.

Jasper Donat, CEO at Branded said, “In a period that has totally uprooted the entertainment industry, it is now a challenge to judge what will be a temporary knock, and what will have a seismic impact for years to come. The survey does however reveal a forward-looking optimism from business leaders and a renewed commitment to purpose-led business.”

Singapore – Over the past 12 months, more than half of businesses in Singapore or 67% of them have used fintech in running their operations, and within this percentage, the top three forms of fintech used emerged to be mobile payments or digital wallets, robo-advisory or chatbots, and open banking APIs, according to a report by CPA Australia.

FIntech
FIntech

Mobile payments recorded the most adoption with 47% of businesses, followed by chatbots with 34%, while 30% said they have used open banking APIs.

Singapore has been widely known for being a top technology hub, and as the coronavirus started threatening safety, the government has further encouraged the use of fintech. In April, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) urged individuals and businesses to use digital finance services and e-payments to help contain physical contact.

Amid social distancing directives, more businesses have expressed desires to adopt fintech, with 73% expecting to use at least one fintech product or service in the next 12 months, with a third of them citing COVID-19 as a reason for further usage, to operate anew amid disruptions in operations.

The most boost in adoption is seen to come from the need to increase efficiency in doing business, with nearly 6 in 10 respondents, or 59.1%, identifying it as an important factor. Meanwhile, more than 4 in 10, or 43.6%, of businesses expect to use fintech to help them better understand and improve customer experience. 

The top three most used fintech are still the same ones seen to drive the adoption for the coming months. About 42.7% of businesses believe that they will use mobile payments the most, followed by robo-advisory and chatbots with 23.6% , and open banking APIs with 19.1%.

Fintech

While the report revealed that a positive adoption of fintech is on the horizon, it also found certain factors that hinder businesses to jump in.

The top concern showed to be cybersecurity with 34% identifying it as a barrier, while a lack of fintech understanding and knowledge within the board and senior management was also a concern with 30%. Meanwhile, 26% simply did not consider fintech to be necessary for business.

Kuala Lumpur – PopWonders, an e-commerce specializing in product and service subscription has launched its platform in Malaysia.

The subscription model is already a growing retail fad in the country and PopWonders aspire to prop up the trend to ultimately offer an online marketplace that would help SMEs build recurring revenue.

The platform’s subscription business model is built around monthly boxes, where boxes are curated to comprise a number of items from a certain brand, one that isn’t limited to products, but goes for services too, said the company.

The company explained in a press statement that it chose to go away with the quintessential online marketplace, as in such transaction type where only a one-timer purchase comes through, a stream of revenue for an SME is often rendered far-fetch. 

“Instead of focusing to close ‘the deal’ on an individual sale with a big profit margin, [our] founder Sean Leong wants merchants to secure dependable recurring revenues through building good relationships with [the] clientele,” stated PopWonders.

Aside from its main value proposition, businesses that list their products are given a backend system for free. The platform automates subscription processing and transactions for online merchants. On top of that, the platform is also said to provide services such as inventory management and shipping tools, brand-building assistance via influencer marketing as well as hybrid AI chatbot, and in-depth data analytics.

Leong said, “Our platform only requires the sellers to be experts on their product and service, then we will handle the rest for them. It allows anyone to sell anything online and market fast without setting their own platform, at the same time, ensure sales are ‘closed’ by [a] subscription business model.”

Leong also shared that the company will soon launch a “Subscription Academy” to guide merchants on how to start a subscription-based business.

“We want to help small business owners who are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to expand their customer base online and generate more revenues in the future. This academy will provide the necessary knowledge and skills for these merchants on building a more sustainable business plan with the right tools and features we offer on PopWonders,” said Leong.

The COVID pandemic has seen a plunge in the employment rate for most industries and according to the Philippines’ statistics, the country’s unemployment has risen to 17.7 percent in April.

Homegrown super-service app MyKuya which launched in 2018 has been since handing out opportunities for its would-be partners, but the ongoing retrenchments in businesses have further proven the app’s value proposition.

MyKuya is a mobile-based application and technology platform which allows users to quickly hire trained partners to run jobs such as grocery delivery, personal shopping in malls, plumbing and carpentry works, and even on-demand tasks for small businesses.

These partners, called Kuyas and Ates (brother and sister), are able to become part of the on-call workers by signing up through the app, and going through just like any normal hiring process, that of with document requirements. 

As of current, the app has signed up 10,000 partners, and they are nowhere near from stopping at that, as MyKuya is rallying to create 1 million job opportunities by 2022.

With this massive goal, how do then the company plans to reach out to prospective Kuyas and Ates?

MyKuya’s Marketing and Communications Manager Gab Billones said that hyperlocalizaiton of content and simplification of narratives are some of its top strategies.

“One of the most effective strategies that we do is hyperlocaliczing our efforts, really targeting communities, condo associations, and different particular groups where interests of the majority, particularly the target market that we have are present in these online communities,” Billones said.

“We also do simplifications. We’re not just doing hyperlocalization, we also simplify the messaging, and the narrative of MyKuya, so it becomes more relatable to as many people as possible. We curate stories, particularly highlighting the activities that our partners do, and the kind of value that our customers actually find with MyKuya services. So those are the kinds of narratives that we actually highlight on our Facebook messaging, and we’re still trying to reach out more and more communities, in preparation for our expansion activities as well,” he added.

Presently, MyKuya has established online presence on the major social media channels of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. On Facebook, they present real-life testimonials of individuals who have already worked as partners for the app, integrating the promotional hashtag #MyKuyaMyHero. 

“How do our Kuya and Ate exemplify heroship during the pandemic? Each Kuya, a different story! Read on the inspirational stories of our partners in this time of lockdown and ECQ, and find out how they are able to help many people!” said one of the posts, followed by quote cards of partners, bearing their images and testimonies. (Translated in English)

In terms of the app’s users, the super-service app has also responded to the hard times that the pandemic has thrusted many into, and has made service rates more wallet-friendly amid users’ tightened budgets.

One thing that it has already done is to reduce the rates for their Pick-up & Drop service, lowering it from P150 per hour to P99 per hour within the MECQ period. 

Reduced rates will also be seen on the app’s services for their enterprise owner users such as BizHelper and MotoToday services. BizHelper is help in tasks like packing, sorting, and organizing, while MotoToday is for those that require motorcycle delivery or pick-ups. Under the MECQ, the lower minimum number of hours to avail of these services has been reduced from 6 hours to 4. 

Enterprise owners are one of the main stakeholders of the app. As of today, it has over 100 SME users. 

When we asked about their approach to business development, just like how they reach out to potential partners, MyKuya’s Country Head Dennis Bunye said that they go for a personalized approach, even implementing an SME club.

“We reach out enterprise partners in terms of in-person, face to face conversations, and we also get referrals in terms of how we can gain access to certain communities, which we hope to serve as well in order to be able to provide more value to them,” said Bunye.

“We are also having this what we call SME club, wherein we will make use of the spirit of community and provide value through not only giving advice and not just being salesy about it, but really sharing what we learned as we get to understand further the requirements of our SMEs right now,” he added.