Future-proofing Asia’s digital native firms

IN today’s digital age, the success of digitally native companies would seem to be par for the course. From startups to unicorns, these are category disruptors reaping the benefits of being born and bred in the cloud.

For one, their lack of cumbersome legacy systems meant that they could respond quickly to the spike in demand for digital services. Asia’s digital native companies led the way, proliferating in a region set to be the fastest-growing digital economy in the world. Meanwhile, traditional incumbents struggled to make the digital leap, let alone innovate.

Yet, many digital natives are now at an impasse. The present-day business environment has long moved beyond a simple digital-native divide because every company is at least partially digital by now. Their next phase of innovation hence becomes critical to overcoming the current stalemate and for continued growth in the years ahead.

First, understanding today’s consumers’ profiles and offering them a differentiated customer experience should take top priority. A digital-native generation fuels consumption of products and services in Asia. Growing up with the Internet, they are familiar with digital lifestyles and more receptive to new technologies. While seemingly easier to woo, this also means that the bar has been raised. The popularity of super-apps in Asia perhaps best echoes what this group of consumers want: a one-stop platform that provides a seamless and hyper-personalised omnichannel experience.

Meeting these heightened expectations requires sustaining a pace of innovation that is constantly accelerating. While building new applications or features from scratch might be the digital-native way, some firms are embattled by organisational complexity and ways of working at their current age and size. A smarter approach would be to tap fit-for-purpose solutions such as software development toolkits (SDKs) or application programming interfaces (APIs) that provide the flexibility to customise and integrate specific features into existing offerings.

For instance, a video SDK embedded directly into the platform in which the customer interaction occurs can transform how insurance relationship managers connect with their clients. Not only does the face-to-face medium drive a more hyper-personalised experience, these interactions are usually compliant with the security requirements of the insurance platform itself, serving as differentiation to other firms still using private, unsecured phone calls.

The bottom line is that innovation needs to remain practical while driving profitability as quickly as possible, which happens on 2 levels. Most organisations stop at the first, which involves expanding to new markets geographically. But the secret to growth at scale lies in unlocking new use cases among those looking for an elevated, differentiated customer experience. Digital natives have an inherent agility in this aspect, and reaching these first-mover consumers would be critical to building up a loyal following that fuels profitability.

We can look to the edtech industry as an example. Post-pandemic, students now expect their learning experience to be immersive, high-quality, and conveniently accessed from where they are. Many online learning platforms have also creatively pivoted their offerings to tap into this growing demand for hybrid learning. With many edtech platforms already built on the cloud, it becomes easy to embed features such as real-time video interactions, gamification, or even augmented reality and virtual reality elements into the learning experience.

To maintain this rate of innovation, digital natives should also look beyond their customers and focus inwards on the employee experience. More than their traditional counterparts with non-cloud-based businesses, these companies need a steady pipeline of tech talent to bolster their digital business models.

This demographic of workers often leans young and has a very different set of expectations for their future workspace. A recent Randstad survey found that millennials and Gen Zs worldwide are now looking for greater flexibility and a workspace that actively drives diversity and equity efforts – and to a greater extent than other age groups. An inclusive, hybrid work environment is the baseline to stay competitive in the hiring landscape. As such, innovating inwards would mean investing in a suitable communications platform that can enable hybrid teams to collaborate effectively and, most importantly, be seen equally.

All this is underpinned by the understanding that today’s era of flexibility is characterised by increasingly decentralised workforces and customer segments that are no longer defined by geography. The business currency of the future is the ability to build meaningful connections with employees, customers, and their end-users, wherever they may be.

Having the right communications technology to facilitate these borderless interactions is not an expectation, but a requisite to break through the impasse. This is the fundamental piece of the puzzle that will underpin the next phase of innovation for Asia’s digital natives.

The writer is head of Asia-Pacific at Zoom.