DigiconAsia: How has the process benefitted your company and customers?
Eric Low: Using platforms such asHubSpot, Shopify, Weebly, Amazon, Infotech and Fortinet, our digitalization process soon started showing results.
With HubSpot, we have been able to add even more value to our customers and customize our support accordingly. Dissemination of educational content has also been a lot easier, further strengthening our relationship and trust with our clients. On the sales and marketing fronts, our customer understanding has also improved given the enhanced analytics. This led to an increase of 22% in revenue.
With the HubSpot CRM, our team members can get a complete view of our prospects’ journey so that we can adjust our strategies to tailor to their needs. Then, with HubSpot Sales Pro, our sales team is able to ‘do more with less’ by using the sales automation so that we can spend more time on adding value to clients.
To maximize the results, we are also using HubSpot Marketing Pro to launch promotional campaigns to retain clients for the longer term.
Ivan Cai: Having digitalized our business, we are able to offer another option for clients to work with us with ease and at any time. We are also able to expand globally, scaling our business and increasing our reach to the USA and Canada (through Amazon).
Lastly, we are also using remote access VPN to help in our current day-to-day operations. This is exceptionally helpful with everyone working from home during the pandemic period.
DigiconAsia: Amid the uncertainties brought on by COVID-19 and/or other factors, how is your business coping? What are some of your plans to adapt and/or recover for future survival and success?
Ivan Cai: Realistically, we have experienced a drop in sales as our major clients have been badly impacted. However, have gone through digitalization has really made such a difference for us. COVID-19 and the current circuit breaker measures have shown that technology is vital in helping businesses continue operations and adapt to the constantly changing environment.
With our digitalized operations, we were able to review the data of our services and clients so that we could quickly formulate a strategy to survive this crisis. We were able to stay closely-connected with our clients, giving them the most updated news and supporting them—this has been especially important as we provide essential services. From these collaborative initiatives with customers, the open rate of our weekly email newsletter to our clients have seen a 30% increase.
We believe that many businesses, including our clients, are dealing with a million concerns at this difficult time, so we have to adapt our marketing initiatives in a way that resonates with customers in the midst of this pandemic. We will focus more on being helpful and taking a consultative approach (e.g., through educational content) to support our clients in this transition. Ultimately, we aim to build an academy system where all the ‘freshmen’ in this industry can come to our website to learn something useful.
Furthermore, we are planning to diversify geographically. The pandemic is a global issue, but it is affecting some countries more than others. Empowered by technology, we are working to diversify and expand our business to other countries such as Indonesia and Australia in the next three to five years.
Through a successful search engine optimization strategy and HubSpot integrations, we will generate more leads from different regions and be less dependent on any one country’s economic situation.
It is not too late
Thanks to firms such as Chuan Kok, we can see how the pains of digitalization have paid off for 30-year-old traditional companies that were holding their own even in an ambitious ‘smart nation’. They stood firm on their old ways even in the early 2000s, but an oil crisis finally mobilized their survival instincts.
Now with something far worse than an oil crisis facing them, businesses in the region will be forced to digitalized (or scale up digitalization) if they managed to survive intact through the first half of 2020. For such businesses, the key to doing DX right is not about going through the motions of building a website or adopting or ramping up whatever digital resources they think are trendy—rather, they need to take stock of their strengths and weaknesses to formulate a strategy that complements their revitalized business mission and vision.
As mentioned, People don’t buy WHAT you digitalize; they buy WHY you did it!
