Southeast Asia is set to reach a digital economy worth USD 360 billion by 2025, driven by trends like hybrid and remote working, upskilling, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) adoption. This growth is expected to benefit technology vendors and SMEs, but it also raises concerns about hidden costs, such as the high costs of employee upskilling and reskilling, which can be out of reach for smaller businesses, leading to slower productivity and lower return on investment.
At the same time, one-third or 150 million Southeast Asians have limited access to technologies, making it harder for businesses to adopt digitalization, resulting in non-uniformed growth, with many companies, tiny- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggling, even before advanced digital capabilities such as automation come into play.
With the number of SaaS platforms available in the market, IT leaders in mid-market businesses are also facing the challenge of picking the right vehicle for business success. At the same time, this challenge is compounded by the problematic reality of hiring the right talent to maximize the utility of these platforms. While minute for more giant corporations, these challenges would be significantly amplified for small and mid-market businesses, especially those that have taken the digital plunge only in recent years.
A SaaS platform that keeps your employees aligned with business goals will ensure internal deadlines are met and inspire a collaborative workplace, hybrid or remote. The SaaS should have a guided onboarding process to help employees set up and meet specific business needs. This reduces training and adoption time, allowing businesses to reap benefits in a shorter timeframe. Companies should also consider how platforms unify their business by providing a comprehensive, holistic view of their operations on a single screen. While most platforms feature dashboards, many result in fragmentation, forcing people into silos instead of encouraging collaborative effort.
With today’s digital business made available on omnichannel streams, identifying customers throughout their journey is essential, not only to engage them with meaningful communication but also for opportunities to inspire loyalty, drive revenue, and trigger repeatable sales. When businesses can harness their data, they can unlock further capabilities, including predictive analysis, cognitive analytics, and the proficiency to foresee future customer behavior and act in anticipation to delight the customer.
Essentially, this workload will be assisted by automation, which enables the enterprise to inject the right communication messages to drive specific consumer behavior on a cyclical frequency based on your business needs. Better managing your customer relationships in this digital age will yield better bottom lines and drive higher returns on investment on your platforms. With 79 percent of marketers across APAC identifying marketing automation as the next growth catalyst, Southeast Asian businesses would benefit tremendously from investing in this technology today.
As consumers conduct their daily purchases online, brands that are data driven and able to deliver automated and personalised experiences will have the resilience and persistence to face any shifting consumer behaviours. Unified Marketing Platforms are here to stay, and businesses that solve everyday customer problems can better navigate uncertainty and build deeper relationships with their audience.
