Helping Members to Transform for a Sustainable Future

While it had posed some challenges, COVID-19 has provided companies the opportunity to rethink and change their business models for a more sustainable future. A complimentary webinar was jointly organised by ASPRI’s Knowledge, Education, Experience & Networking (KEEN) Workgroup and  AJP Advisers Group on 6 August 2020 to discuss topics such as Leadership, Digitalisation and Digital Marketing – and how they could help members adapt to the new norm brought about by COVID-19.

Qualities of a Good Leader

Mr Allen Pathmarajah, Executive Chairman of AJP Advisers Group, opened the session with a brief introduction to how the COVID-19 situation had enhanced the need for companies to have good leaders. He pointed out that the world was over-managed, but under-led as he explained the difference between a manager and a leader.

Mr Pathmarajah also emphasised that great communication and emotional intelligence (EQ) are two important attributes of a good leader. He then supported his remarks by citing real life and personal experiences during his 35 years of career.

Acquiring and Keeping Customers

The second speaker, Mr John Koh, Principal Business Coach of Business Thinking Systems, spoke about the 5Ps of Marketing and Sales– Product, Price, Placement, Promotion and People – and their importance during both the initial and later stages of the relationship forged between the customer and company.

Mr Koh highlighted the importance of nurturing the relationships of existing customers rather than too much emphasis on pursuing new customers.  Given proper attention and care, they could become loyal clients and advocates in the future.

Generate Customers by Building a Digital Marketing Framework

Ever the advent of the Internet two decades ago, there has been a paradigm shift with people spending increasingly more time online. With Covid-19,  time spent online had spiked, especially with work-from-home (WFH) arrangements. Mr John Chen, Managing Director of CPXi Asia, believed that many companies had done likewise and jumped on the digital bandwagon to keep up with the trend.

The key to digital marketing, Mr Chen noted,  was simply to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. Compared to its traditional marketing tools such as newspaper and radio advertisements, digital marketing is a two-directional form of advertising which allows for more specific and intentional selling.

The data acquired through digital marketing could also be leveraged for analysis, he added,  to help improve  future marketing campaigns.

Digitalising Your Business

Mr Richard Cleeve, Chief Executive Officer of Codestream, supplemented Mr Chen’s presentation by sharing his insights on digitalisation and how companies could adopt it into their workflow. One of the immediate effects of digitalisation for companies is the improvement of their operational processes. An example would be the reduction of paperwork, improvement in housekeeping and updating of databases.

Before companies adopt a digital plan, Mr Cleeve said they must identify their objectives – what do they want to achieve by going digital? Once their objectives have been ascertained, they would have to prioritise the important ones first, and proceed one step at a time.