4 digital capabilities SEA businesses should focus on in 2022

Governments around Southeast Asia (SEA) are prioritizing investments to strengthen digital capabilities among local enterprises. The recently announced Singapore Budget 2022, for instance, has set aside S$200 million to enhance schemes that build digital capabilities in local businesses and workers, such as the Grow Digital Scheme, which helps businesses access overseas markets digitally.

As these programs encourage firms to accelerate technology adoption, hiring and training to address immediate digital skills gaps across all functions, there are four areas that they can focus on to gain a competitive advantage in the digital-first economy.

Content creation

While the Metaverse may seem like a futuristic sci-fi concept, investing in your team’s capabilities now to create for the 3D, VR, AR space will futureproof your business. Beyond the gaming and entertainment industries, businesses globally are increasingly experimenting with new forms of digital and 3D content, NFTs, retail formats, and engagements with customers in the Metaverse.

Amazon, for example, creates immersive shopping experiences with photorealistic 3D assets for key product categories, including furniture and fittings. Customers can spin a product 360 degrees to inspect it from every angle or use Amazon’s ‘View in Your Room’ feature to preview what furniture will look like in their homes. By doing this, Amazon is not only bringing shoppers closer to the products and enhancing their online shopping experience but also accelerating content velocity by eliminating the need to manufacture prototypes and take photos of millions of products.

And with the Metaverse gaining momentum, there will also be new streams of digital customers, digital journeys, and data to track and manage.

First-party data management

As brands increasingly shift their focus to first-party data in preparation for the deprecation of third-party cookies, there will be new data privacy challenges as well as opportunities to tap into. Effective customer data management requires the right technology and platforms and demands strategic collaboration across internal teams – including IT, Marketing, Finance, and Legal – as well as a corresponding shift in skills and mindset among the employees. Functional teams will need to develop new skills to understand how and where data can be leveraged to inform decisions and connect all possible touchpoints where data can be collected from, tested, and refined to improve customer experiences.

To enhance personalized and individually tailored experiences, Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Group prioritizes customer journey mapping to better understand the behaviors of their customers before they enter the park, and realized that “just like air travel, it starts well before you board the plane.” This understanding is now helping Mandai deliver better personalized experiences during visits and also continue to strengthen relationships after the customer has left the park.

Commerce

Every business is a digital business today. While the initial stages of the pandemic in 2020 saw a frantic rush to eCommerce, 2021 was more about taking stock and adapting to ongoing uncertainty. As businesses recalibrate for 2022, online retail spending is expected to grow. Consumers have enjoyed an explosion of choices over the past 18 months, and personalization will be the key differentiator for brands to stand out. Businesses that invest in omnichannel commerce capabilities will be able to optimize their personalization efforts and deliver relevant experiences across touchpoints, improving customer loyalty and retention.

COURTS Asia, for example, revitalized their online stores with Adobe Commerce. They combined their mobile, SEO and marketing campaigns onto a single platform and successfully drove almost 100 percent year-on-year growth in online sales for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday events.

Hybrid work

Businesses organized for speed, collaboration and innovation are best positioned to turn possibilities into commercial opportunities. However, many organizations today are being constrained by outdated working practices and technology, stifling creativity and speed to market. While the trend of hybrid work is here to stay, many SEA firms are not ready to embrace this future – posing a further challenge to talent acquisition and retention. Organizations must reorientate for agility by modernizing working practices and technology infrastructure – including document processes and workflows and collaboration tools – and adapting to a hybrid working world.

Looking ahead in 2022, change is here to stay. Now that consumers are rewired for digital, their expectations for personalized experiences have intensified. SEA businesses must create change at every level of their organization to compete in the digital-first economy — from embracing first-party data to increasing experience investment.