Bouncing Back From Business Failure

Not all businesses become successful. Some fail after only a few months of operation.

Failure in business is not caused by just one person or an overlooked incident. There are many reasons why a business fails.

The most common causes are:

1.    The product offered may not be unique. There may be a lot of similar products on the market. To stand out, entrepreneurs must focus on their product can be something that the public will want over competitors.

2.    Poor customer service. This is one particular factor that is very important in any kind of business. As an entrepreneur, you must always ensure that your customers are always given proper courtesy when they seek assistance. Employees/salespersons should be properly trained to deal with customers.

3.    Lack of leadership. Supervisors and managers should lead their teams to ensure that the quality of a product or service. The leader of the team has the responsibility to make the right decisions. Entrepreneurs themselves should also have the right skills to be effective leaders to their employees. 

4.    Insufficient capital. You may have a great idea on how to run your business. But if you lack capital, the business may not last. For the initial phase of the business, you need to make sure that you have the means to cover your overhead expenses such as the salary of your employees, store or office lease, taxes, suppliers, etc.

5.    Incompatible business partners. Choosing the right business partner is crucial. It is not enough that the person you have in mind is a friend or recommended by a friend. You need to look for a partner that has the same vision as you and has a wide perspective with handling a business. More than the financial aid that the partner can provide, you and your prospective business partner should have a good relationship.

6.    No clear target market. You should be clear about your target market. The same goes in choosing the right location to offer your products and services. If you are offering high-end products, the business is unlikely to prosper if your shop is located in a place not frequented by high-end shoppers.

7.    Unscrupulous spending. Always remember that your business is not your bank account. Do not overspend by taking out most of the money that your business needs. This is a very common mistake among new entrepreneurs. The moment that their business starts to grow, they hop on to the next plane to Europe. Entrepreneurs who have this mindset will see their business fold after a while.

How to get back on your feet after losing a business?

Entrepreneurs are risk-takers. A real entrepreneur does not give up as soon as he encounters a problem. To get back on track, entrepreneurs should be able to do these:

1.    Think if you are ready to start all over again. Even if you already have the capital needed to start a new business, it is important that you see yourself having the enthusiasm to go on. It is hard if you just push yourself to start any kind of business even if you know that your heart isn’t in it.

2.    Ask yourself why your business failed. Identify the possible causes of failure so that you can avoid it from happening again. Allow yourself to polish your skills and improve yourself to minimize potential faults. It may not always be the entrepreneur’s fault, however, it is the entrepreneur’s responsibility to look through everything and carefully choose the right people to work for him. You may not know everything, therefore, looking for an adviser or business mentor may just be of great help.

3.    Create a better business plan. Never settle for having just a “Plan A”. No matter how perfect the plan may seem, it is always wiser to come up with a back-up plan, just in case.
Keep in mind that things may not always go according to plan. But always keep your eyes wide open so that you can save your business before it completely crumbles.

Losing all that time and money can dampen anyone’s enthusiasm. However, not all is lost when you learn from your failure.

Indonesia - Potential HealthTech Unicorn

Back in October 2018, Indonesia’s Minister of Communication and Information Rudiantara mentioned that both healthtech and edutech verticals are set to grow the country’s next unicorn. The statement is not without credence, considering the country has seen the rise of gojek as a decacorn, and Tokopedia, Traveloka, and Bukalapak all steadily grow at an encouraging pace holding the unicorn status.

“In theory, healthtech has a bigger chance than other tech sectors in Indonesia, considering five per cent of our state budget goes into the health sector,” said Rudiantara during the IdeaFest 2018 event. Rudiantara also noted that the Indonesian government continues to support the country’s startup, especially by inviting more investors to put money into edutech and healthtech startups.

Whether or not the minister’s prediction will come true, these eight healthtech startups are certainly up for the race.

Medigo

Focussing on the growth in the health service ecosystem, Medigo laimed that it leverages digital technology to build a bridge for basic problems encountered in Indonesia. Medigo is a platform that assists hospitals and clinics to become connected digitally with patients, standardise manual filings, tackle problems in reference management, and create a more efficient way to connect with insurances, including with the government-aided BPJS. 

Medigo was founded in May 2018 by Harya Bimo, to focus on the issue of interoperability in all levels of healthcare facilities from Puskesmas (local health centre), clinics, to hospitals. There is also inefficiency in accessing medical records for both patients and healthcare providers, along with complicated referencing process between healthcare facilities. Not to mention the manual process required for insurance claims. To address the problem, Medigo introduces an out-patient management platform for hospitals to manage their polyclinics operations such as registrations, queue, patient slots, and doctors’ schedules through API connection.

For clinics, Medigo provides an integrated clinic management application called Medigo Qlinik, which is aimed towards clinic owners or management to digitise their operations.

It receive seed funding from Ventura Discovery, which is the new investment arm of Venturra Capital in April 2019.

Pasienia

Here is another facet of healthtech that is easily overlooked: a social connection. Pasienia, founded by Fadil Wilihandarwo, an alumnus of Gajah Mada University, offers the Android-based app to find and connect with friends who are also going through the same thing.

If the notion seems too much of a melancholy, Google Business Group (GBG) Stories sure did not think so. It was chosen as the champion, beating 468 apps back in April 2017, and given chance to visit Google HQ in Mountainview, Calfornia. The competition itself is an annual entrepreneurs-targeted occasion to encourage business owners to go digital. 

Pasienia allows access to two timelines: One for patients to be connected to each other, and one for doctors to consult symptoms directly with doctors online. Using the app, patients can get information about healthcare and programmes to support the recovery journey. The connection to fellow patients can also help them improve their quality of life.

The company’s currency is undoubtedly the sense of community and companionship and the sharing of information on the basis of solidarity. Something that is refreshingly needed by digital adopters, who easily grow inept to social connection.

PesanLab

PesanLab dubs itself as “the first platform for lab test and medical check-up in Indonesia that gives the customer the ability to make a better decision for their health”. In 2014, PesanLab began with LabConX, a platform that gathers and analyses data from medical check-up result around Indonesia and processes it into actionable information.

LabConX then added lab testing and medical check-up booking platform in 2015, that came in with a partnership with several local, reputable clinical laboratory to give autonomy to customers to decide the kind of service they want to get. It then changed its name into PesanLab in 2016. Using the platform, PesanLab customers can book a wide range of services, from a blood test that can be done with home service, to an x-ray test. They can also access the results online. From the other end, medical staff can access a dashboard that enables them to access patients’ data, requested services, and track the payment process.

PesanLab is CEO-ed by Dimas Prasetyo and is a sister company of HaloDoc, gojek’s health collaborator along with medicine delivery startup ApotikAntar. The startup shared with e27 back in August 2016 that it has raised its seed round of funding from undisclosed angel investors.

Homecare24

Homecare24 was established in 2017. It focusses on providing a variety of homecare services, on-demand booking with qualified and certified nurses to ensure the ability to perform emergency medical action if needed. The tech-enabled platform highlighted that its main mission is to “provide healthcare access for all while maintaining nurses’ wellbeing with a dependable career”.

Homecare24 was founded by Theresia Lumban Gaol who is a graduate of the University of Indonesia’s nursing faculty, with co-founders Monica Lumban Gaol and Alexander Horison. She discovered that the poor quality of healthcare services in Indonesia is related to the meagre wages that nurses are receiving, which may go as low as IDR500,000 (US$37.5) per month in rural areas.

Right now, Homecare24 is available as an Android- and iOS-based mobile app and offers one-hour and eight-hour services, as well as live-in services for the duration of up to one month.

HaloDoc

Among all healthtech startups being mentioned in this article, HaloDoc would be the one with the most development in the past year. Operating a mobile platform for patients to access doctors consultation, pharmacy delivery as well as home lab services, in March the startup raised US$65 million funding from UOB Ventures. In July it received another investment from Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. 

In the past, HaloDoc made waves after President Joko Widodo mentioned its name as one of the four startups that shape the country’s “digital energy”. In 2017, Gojek integrated its Go-Med option with HaloDoc platform, which runs until today.

In total, the startup has raised US$100 million so far.

TeleCTG

TeleCTG described itself as “a simplified CTG device consists of developed hardware and software that is cost- effective, portable, and can directly send the result.” The device aims to provide a more affordable Tele-CTG device that it can fulfil the needs of CTG as a diagnostic device by four to 10 times.

With an affordable device, the company said it has contributed in succeeding the achievement of one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is lowering the mortality rate of mothers and babies. Such a device can help with accurate and timely diagnosis, as well as better governance to take place. 

TanyaDok

TanyaDok allows users to access health information and consultation online with the vision “better health access for all”. It provides health access for the family of Indonesia, in the form of the health community, online doctor Q&A, health articles, healthy living solutions, and referral to suitable health care.

Having been around since 2006, TanyaDok has been in operation significantly longer than the other healthtech startups. The company claims that it has over 200 doctors joining its community and has been building awareness about health through its platform, email, and social media.

TanyaDok was started by medical doctor Gregorius Bimantoro, and it was the representative for Indonesia at Echelon 2013, winning the Indonesia Satellite.

AloDokter

AloDokter boasts 18 million monthly active users since it was established in 2014. The startup bases its service on providing understandable and accessible health information in Indonesian.

AloDokter provides integrated medical service from updated content, chat with doctors, online booking platform for consultation, and hospital searches on both web and mobile app.The company was established in 2014 by Nathanael Faibis after a four-year stint at Lazada and Sanisphere in Vietnam and Jakarta. 

AloDokter first raised seed funding in 2015, and steadily fundraised over the next couple of years, with US$2.5 million in Series A Funding led by Golden Gate Ventures in 2016 and US$9 million in Series B Funding back in 2017.

These eight healthtech players are occupying a hot seat that launches directly into the market needs, given its digital readiness, answering and sorting out problems in Indonesia’s healthcare issues. Whether or not they can emerge as the next unicorn as predicted remains to be answered.

GoJek Fortune Change The World List

Gojek, Southeast Asia’s leading on-demand technology platform, once again made it onto the annual Fortune “Change the World” list. The recognition is given to companies that have a positive and wide socioeconomic impact.

This year, Gojek ranked 11th among the 52 international organizations assessed, marking a leap from position 17 it held in 2017. This makes Gojek the only Southeast Asian company to make it onto this year’s Fortune “Change the World” list. Gojek was recognized in particular for GoPay’s innovation in accelerating financial inclusion in Indonesia. Gojek is also the only Southeast Asian company to have received this internationally recognized accolade twice.

Global CEO and founder of Gojek Nadiem Makarim said, “We are humbled to be recognized by Fortune once again for accomplishing what we have set out to achieve from day one – empowering lives and solving problems through technology. We are so thankful to all of our driver partners, merchants, customers, business partners, governments and investors for their continuous support. Our stakeholder support is the key to Gojek’s success in evolving into an integrated ecosystem with three Super Apps that move people, things, and money.”

The prominent global listing highlights how GoPay, Gojek’s digital payments platform, helps drive Indonesia’s digital economy by expanding financial access for millions in Indonesia, where 64 percent of the population is ‘unbanked’. As highlighted by Fortune, “In 2018, users purchased over US$6 billion in goods and services through GoPay, which also offers back-end support and loans to some 130,000 smaller businesses.”

Nadiem added, “At Gojek, it’s always about tackling challenges and enabling a better life for everyone in our ecosystem. From enabling cashless transactions for consumers to ease of payments and business growth for merchants, GoPay has proven that #ThereIsAlwaysAWay to change the world for the better.”

GoPay CEO Aldi Haryopratomo also expressed his gratitude for the trust placed in GoPay: “We have always focused on the grassroots. Since 2016, GoPay has quickly transformed from a simple way for users to pay for Gojek services to driver partners now being able to use our platform to access mortgages, loans for education, health insurance and even to save for the umrah. Today, GoPay is the largest consumer digital payments platform in Indonesia, and more than 90 percent of our GoPay merchants are micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). However, we do not just measure success in terms of current transaction volume, but rather by how we can make a grassroots impact at a global scale."

In its fifth year running, Fortune’s “Change the World” list is intended to showcase the synergy between business strategy and the creation of positive social impact.

The nominees are assessed in partnership with the Shared Value Initiative, a global platform for organizations seeking business solutions to social challenges, and FSG, a non-profit social-impact consulting firm. Fortune’s assessment for this award is based on four criteria: measurable social impact, business results, degree of innovation, and corporate integration.

“GoPay’s strategy is to build an ecosystem with our partners. We believe that by including more people in the formal financial system, we can grow together with our partners, which include banks, restaurants, retailers and many more.

Much like a coral reef, where more fish mean more corals and a more vibrant ecosystem, the more partners we have, the more families we can help,” Aldi concluded.

ABOUT GOJEK GROUP - Gojek Group is Southeast Asia’s leading on-demand multi-service platform technology group, founded on the principle of using technology to improve the lives of users within its ecosystem.

The Gojek app was launched for consumers in Indonesia in January 2015 and has since

evolved into the largest on-demand multi-service platform in Southeast Asia, providing access to a wide range of services from transportation and payments to food delivery, logistics and many other on-demand services. Gojek Group now operates in 207 cities in five Southeast Asian countries.

As of first semester of 2019, the Gojek application and apps in its ecosystem have been downloaded by more than 155 million users across the region, with more than 2 million driver partners registered, up to 400,000 merchant partners and over 60,000 service providers.

As Gojek continues on its mission to create and scale up positive socioeconomy impacts for its ecosystem of users, driver partners, business partners and MSME partners, as well as service providers, Gojek’s founder & CEO, Nadiem Makarim, was recently included in the Year 2018 Bloomberg 50 list of icons and innovators who have changed the global business landscape with such impacts. Besides, in June 2019, Nadiem received the 24th Nikkei Asia Prize for Economic and Business Innovation in Tokyo, Japan. Nadiem is the youngest technology figure in Asia to receive the award in the history of Nikkei Asia Prizes, first held 23 years ago; and is the first Indonesian who won the prestigious award in this category.

Digital Revolution - Banking & Insurance

Consumers are driving the demand for digital-only banks and insurers in Asia-Pacific. Pioneers such as China-based WeBank and South Korea-based Kakao have provided early and emphatic business cases, but this is just the beginning.

Digital-only banks are expected to gain significant traction in the region over the next few years. A large number of respondents (polled throughout Asia-Pacific) said they would consider switching to digital-only banks in the next two years.

More Malaysian respondents said “yes” (31%) than “no” (24%) when asked if they would consider switching. The appeal of digital-only banks is even more apparent in Indonesia (48%) and Thailand (44%), where even more respondents said they would consider making the jump.

Regulators in Hong Kong, Singapore and, more recently, Malaysia are at various stages of drafting relevant regulations and approval processes. Malaysia’s digital banking framework is set to be launched by year end and more than 10 parties have expressed interest in setting up digital banks in the country, according to Suhaimi Ali, director of financial development and innovation at Bank Negara Malaysia.

In June, Monetary Authority of Singapore chairman Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced the issuance of up to five digital bank licences in the city state. Other countries are gradually following suit and as a result, the entire region is on the cusp of major breakthroughs in digital banking, the report notes.

The strong preference for digital-only banking should not come as a surprise as 77% of banking customers in the region prefer digital channels, according to the report. Mobile banking is the region’s top digital channel, but internet banking remains a slightly more important channel in Australia and a close second in Hong Kong and Malaysia.  

Digital coming for insurers - Much like those in the retail banking space, traditional insurers are launching digital-only life insurance distribution models.

Interestingly, with the exception of Singapore and Malaysia, digital is the preferred post-sales engagement channel across the region. Between 40% and 60% of customers prefer digital engagement channels, the report notes. However, these consumers often find digital services lacking in basic areas, including the ability to view policies, premiums, savings totals and rates of return.

Even when agents do get involved, customers expect them to be digitally savvy and to be able to engage effectively through digital channels. Some 60% in Hong Kong and nearly 90% in metropolitan India believe it is important that their agents use digital tools to help clients understand the best products that meet their needs.

In fact, poor digital experience is an often-cited reason for switching between life insurers. According to the report, between 10% (Indonesia) and 17% (metropolitan India and Malaysia) switch life insurers due to this issue.

Taking a two-year view, Malaysian respondents were evenly split between “yes” and “no” when asked if they would switch to digital-only insurers. However, once again, respondents in Indonesia (51%) and Thailand (46%) overwhelmingly said they were considering making the switch in the next few years.

More broadly, the poll found that consumers in metropolitan China (85%) and metropolitan India (81%) were leading the demand for major product and experience innovation in the financial services space. Having said that, other countries in the region are gradually following suit. A closer look at banking and insurance-related consumer preference data in countries such as Australia, Malaysia and Singapore reveal relatively positive views of the digital wave in the financial services landscape.

Nonetheless, there is still sufficient divergence from country to country — the implication being that financial services and technology players should not treat the region’s billions-strong consumer base as a single bloc, China and India notwithstanding.

 Evolve or expire - Traditional players in the financial services industry risk missing the boat as fast-evolving consumer expectations push key personal financing services online. As these players have been slow to react, technology giants and next-generation industry disruptors have seized the initiative and are forcing change.

Today, there exists a multibillion-dollar digital-first supply chain, comprising tech giants, digital-only banks and insurers, payment providers, e-commerce platforms and even ride-sharing unicorns. Each of these players represent a threat to the incumbents in the financial services space, says the report. They are offering services that are simpler, more convenient to access and more personalised than ever before.

The traditional players still largely command the trust of consumers to act in their best financial interests, according to the report. However, even this key dynamic is being threatened by a host of new, digital-first entrants.

In countries such as China and India, consumers’ trust in the digital ecosystem is so high that many of the firms regularly score higher than insurers and government pension funds. According to the report, Google has just about edged banks in India as the most trusted company to act in their best financial interests.

In China, Alibaba and WeChat rank just slightly behind banks. In the region, insurers have broken into the top three in just two locations — Hong Kong and Malaysia.

Driving the demand for these services is the fact that digital-first consumers are more open than ever to new digital financial services and operating models, the report notes.

As customers continue to seek out new and interesting use cases, tech giants and other financial services-related entrants will continue to deconstruct the personal finance services ecosystem. In the process, the new financial services landscape in Asia-Pacific will broaden and become fragmented in ways that conventional institutions no longer recognise, says the report.

Carlos Ghosn - Power, Greed & Downfall

Carlos Ghosn, chairman of Nissan Motor Co., was arrested in Tokyo on Nov. 19 for underreporting his income and misusing corporate funds to pay for family vacations and properties in four cities around the world.

Some wonder if top Japanese businessmen orchestrated his downfall to prevent Nissan’s merger with Renault. The case is also shining an uncomfortable spotlight on the Japanese criminal justice system’s reputed presumption of “guilty until proven guilty,” with the primary goal of securing a conviction rather than ensuring justice.

The instinctive reaction to the news was: How could he? What was he thinking? Given his massive compensation package (¥5 billion over five years), with an estimated net worth of $100 million, why would he risk imprisonment and the destruction of a lifetime’s hard-earned reputation — often voted the world’s third or fourth most respected business leader — for another 30 pieces of gold?

One clue is the culture of celebrity CEOs in an era of globalization gone off the rails. The corporate world has progressively destroyed the harmonious balance of interests between shareholder profits, CEO compensation packages, staff salaries and consumer satisfaction. In this brave new world, CEOs inhabit a bubble, hold fast to the belief in their own genius and expect to be revered as a guru.

In a wickedly funny satire back in 2011, Stanley Bing noted seven ways in which CEOs are like babies. They are the center of the universe to the exclusion of everyone else. Both are entitled to awake others at whim and demand full attention to their needs, with no thought for weekends and holidays. Neither has to worry about money. Their food is prepared for them with great care and expense. Their pronouncements, even incoherent babblings, are held to be worthy of the highest praise and admiration. They are conveyed from place A to B in vehicles reserved exclusively for them. And both can break out into a screaming rage without warning, frightening anyone around out of their wits.

The article appealed to me because the previous year I had experienced that syndrome in Canada. Coincidentally, the article’s CEO photo was that of Donald Trump.

There hasn’t been a more exciting time to be a critic of the “greed is good” philosophy of the corporate sector led by self-centric rock star CEOs. The annual Oxfam study of the world’s wealth and income distribution, presented during the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, highlighted how 82 percent of the global wealth generated in 2017 was captured by the richest 1 percent. Just 42 people own the same wealth as the 3.7 billion who make up the bottom half of the world’s population.

Australia Post’s previous CEO earned a multimillion dollar salary — more than the CEO of the considerably bigger U.S. operation — and was paid handsome bonuses in addition. The justification was the greatly increased profits his tenure had overseen. But this was owing to laying off workers in their thousands, keeping the wages of the remaining labor force depressed and running down the frequency and reliability of services while increasing their cost. In other words, profits were privatized, rich rewards were individualized and the costs and risks were socialized as the laid-off workers became welfare beneficiaries. How this is supposed to be a net social benefit is beyond me.

Ghosn’s reputation was similar. Along with other strategies, the “brilliance” of his successful turnaround of Nissan from near bankruptcy rested also on aggressive campaigns of “downsizing,” the business euphemism for large-scale firings. Again, it is an open question as to whether the net social cost of such a strategy is not higher than the traditional Japanese business culture of an iron compact between a company and its workforce, where decades of loyalty are rewarded by a lifetime job guarantee.

The Royal Commission into misconduct in the Australian banking, superannuation and financial services industry, currently in its seventh and final round, has uncovered literally unbelievable but widespread and systematic practices of malfeasance across the three sectors. Clients, sometimes even deceased clients, were billed hefty fees for services never delivered. Advisers directed vulnerable clients into services that maximized advisers’ commissions rather than protecting clients’ income. And the well-remunerated regulators were largely asleep at the wheel. Worst of all, the government fought tooth and nail to prevent the inquiry but had its hands forced by a hostile majority in the Senate. This merely reinforces public cynicism about politicians being in the pockets of the big end of town.

The depth and extent of financial malfeasance exposed by the Royal Commission is intrinsic to the nature of rent-seeking crony capitalism. Much of the corporate environment has become an ethics-free zone. As the mode of corporate leadership came to be more widely emulated in the public sector and universities, the vices of casino capitalism corrupted sectors that previously were pillars of public service ethos. The dominant management ideology has imposed the corporate culture on public sector and university administrations, with an accompanying infestation of some ethically challenged CEOs. The primary motivation becomes not public or community service, but extracting the maximum compensation package, paid for by downsizing staff and, in universities, short-changing students.

Perhaps what advanced industrialized countries need instead is a bit more of the old public service virtues infecting the private sector that has lost touch with community expectations. To restore public trust in financial institutions and the corporate sector, the best and the brightest from the public sector could be poached and perched in positions of corporate power to instruct them on what a moral compass means in practice. It is time to bring civic virtue back into the marketplace and spread civility, along with racial and gender diversity, in the boardroom.

Maybe the boardroom should look for a different model of successful corporate leadership, people who are self-effacing rather than self-promoting, who shun and deflect adulation, who have the moral imagination to feel the anxiety of those fearing — and the anguish of those experiencing — job losses, who sublimate the needs of ego into the larger goal of making their company great again. In other words, a CEO who can make the workers connect emotionally and instinctively to the larger cause of the company that transcends their immediate self-interest, and who leads by example when financial stringency calls for companywide pay-packet sacrifices.  

Gibraltar BSN Policy Delivery Via WhatsApp

Gibraltar BSN Life Bhd has launched its e-policy delivery system via WhatsApp, which the insurer claims is the first such system in the Malaysian market.

Additionally, the company has also debuted its chatbot GINA, which stands for Gibraltar Intelligent Assistant, to provide 24/7 customer service on the WhatsApp platform.

“Technological advancements have driven a change in consumer behaviour where today’s customers expect instant gratification,” said Rangam Bir, CEO of Gibraltar BSN. “We are proud to be the first insurer in Malaysia to deliver immediacy and convenience to our customers by leveraging WhatsApp, a popular household messenger app that allows our customers to easily retrieve their insurance policies whenever they want, gain answers to their queries instantly 24-7 or even download claim documents.”

Regarding the choice of messaging app, Gibraltar BSN cited the Internet Users Survey 2018, published by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, which found that WhatsApp is the most widely used messaging app in the country.

The launch of the WhatsApp e-policy delivery system and chatbot follow the recent launch of iLyfe, the insurer’s digital sales tool for agents. These digital initiatives, the insurer said, are part of its three-year ASCEND transformation programme, which seeks to make it a “stronger and more dynamic competitor” in the Malaysian life insurance market.