On April 7, Global CIO Forum in collaboration with RosettaNet Singapore GS1 successfully hosted the first Asia edition of Future IT Summit. FITS Asia saw over 2,000+ attendees and insightful panel discussions. The theme of the event was based on evolving customer experience driven by the pandemic and the accelerating digital transformation.
Manoj Saxena, Chairman, RosettaNet Singapore GS1 delivered the opening note at FITS Asia. The following speakers participated in the event:
- Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir, Group Managing Director, DNeX
- Manoj Saxena, Chairman, RosettaNet Singapore GS1
- Vinay Awasthi, World Wide Head of Print Supply Chain, HP
- Jamil Khan, EVP-Logistics, Lazada
- Nicole Tretwer, Head of Logistics Services, APAC, Swarovski
- Sadiq Rowther, Ex-CIO, Levi Strauss
- Anil Menon, Head IT, Lulu Group India
- Ashokraj Vadivelu, CEO, Intelizest
- Santosh Nair, Regional Head of IT End User and IT Partner Management, Siemens
- NG Chee Keong, Vice President, GeTS
- Venkatesh Mahadevan, Chief Information Officer, Dubai Investments
- Saket Gore, CEO, Asia Pacific, The Himalaya Drug Company
- Millie Gillon, Global Head of Customer Experience, Senior Managing Director, Standard Chartered Bank
- Eddie NG, VP Group Cargo Solutions & Platform Development, PSA International
- Juliana Chua, Regional Head, Digital Transformation, Essilor Group
- Saket Sarda, Senior Vice President-APAC, C2FO
- Amit Bhatia, Chief Information Officer, Jaquar Group
- Sanjay Agrawal, VP Information Technology, Avery Dennison
Millie Gillon of Standard Chartered Bank
Gillion delivered the first keynote address on Taking Client Insights to the Next Level. She spoke about how the voice of the partner needs to be understood for ease of integration. Gillon highlighted that we need to look at various signals all around the world, monitor trends and build for the future.
Eddie NG of PSA International
Eddie NG delivered the second keynote address on enhancing customer experience through digitalisation. He spoke about the key considerations for future customer experience which include being intuitive, interoperable, and impregnable.
Eddie NG highlighted that the future of customer experience is already here, and customers also expect different solutions to be digitalised. Technology should allow easy integration for ease of use, he said.
Eddie NG also spoke about how blockchain and encryption will become necessity in the future and organisations are seeing more deployment of RPA. He concluded by saying customers are already spoilt for choices and their tendency is to pick up the solution which offers best experience.
Panel Discussion on CX: Supply Chain and E-commerce Cross Borders
Manoj Saxena of RosettaNet Singapore GS1 moderated the first panel discussion on CX: Supply Chain and E-commerce Cross Borders. The panellists included Jamil Khan of Lazada, NG Chee Keong (CK) of GeTS, Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir of DNeX and Vinay Awasthi of HP.
Dato’ Sri Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir of DNeX
Dato’ highlighted how we need to guide customers to make the right decision and understand their pain points. He also said pandemic has changed a lot, but nothing beats face to face interaction. Dato’ stressed the importance of understanding the basic rule that customer is always right.
Vinay Awasthi of HP
Awasthi elaborated on how this pandemic has brought millions of customers closer to HP. He said that in today’s world, organisations need to address customer needs on a continuous basis. Awasthi stressed that relationship with customer is critical and the customer experience must always be consistent and fact-based coupled with humility.
NG Chee Keong (CK) of GeTS
CK said that tracking user experience these days is imperative. He also highlighted the importance of analytics tools in delivering a superior customer experience.
Jamil Khan of Lazada
During the panel discussion, Khan spoke about how based on the data, they align technology and commercial side with the right people to create a consistent customer experience.
Sanjay Agrawal of Avery Dennison
The event progressed with another insightful keynote address by Sanjay Agrawal. Agrawal spoke about Transformation of CX and Digital CX. He highlighted that digital experience delivers outpaced results vs non-digital one. 75% of business buyers expect vendors to offer personalised engagements, Agrawal pointed out.
Panel Discussion on CX: Retail Shift
Sadiq Rowther, Ex-CIO, Levi Strauss moderated the second panel on CX: Retail Shift. The panellists included Nicole Tretwer of Swarovski, Anil Menon of Lulu Group India, Ashokraj Vadivelu of Intelizest and Venkatesh Mahadevan of Dubai Investments.
Nicole Tretwer of Swarovski
Speaking about the pandemic-led shift in consumer experience, Tretwer said that Swarovski has a loyal consumer base and to replicate the experience in online channel, they re-engage with customers interactively via social media.
During the panel discussion, Tretwer raised several questions for the IT decision-makers and stressed the role of IT in replicating the consumer experience in virtual space and support in supply chain. She said that lack of visibility into demand is the problem today. She said that predictive analytics is needed to address demand.
Venkatesh Mahadevan of Dubai Investments
Mahadevan said that CX is going to be the catalyst and centrepiece for transformation. He stressed that it is the time to get the consumer to be your story and be relevant. He said that the strategy should be to move from organisation emotion to customer emotion.
Mahadevan highlighted that a lot of organisations are working on outdated technologies. He said that the consumers are getting more demanding and hence the customer experience needs to be personalised. Mahadevan stressed that organisation should not build on something they have been doing as it may no longer work. Organisations need to work in real-time.
Mahadevan also highlighted that neuroscience and anthropology will be integral for interactive customer experience. He stressed that one should breakdown the walls between brick and mortar and online experience and make it seamless. Automation will be the key investment going forward and consumers should be treated as real, he concluded.
Anil Menon of Lulu Group India
Menon said that there has been a cultural and mindset shift towards IT and the pandemic has taught us how to collaborate with competitors. He said that data is giving us suggestions to make the right decisions and with the help of artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality, the customer reach has gone high.
He highlighted that personalisation has become hyper personalisation.
Ashokraj Vadivelu of Intelizest
Vadivelu highlighted that it is important to give an experience where safety is taken care of be it brick and mortar store or online channel. He said that prior to pandemic, customer experience was all about CX and touch, now there is no touch.
Business model needs to be re-orchestrated now because the logistics are not available at our choice, it is the choice of governments, he said. Vadivelu also pointed out the cycle has changed to across the table instead of a week.
Panel on CX Insights Across Industries
The panel was moderated by Santosh Nair of Siemens. The panellists included Juliana Chua of Essilor Group, Saket Sarda of C2FO, Amit Bhatia of Jaquar Group and Saket Gore of The Himalaya Drug Company.
Juliana Chua of Essilor Group
Chua said that the one and only goal is to delight the customers and they try to digitise all their customers to move into a digital journey. She spoke about different touch points working out to reduce the manual work lot of change management internally and externally.
Chua highlighted there is no golden rule for customer delight other than simplification. Change management is easier when ease of use is high, she said.
Saket Sarda of C2FO
Speaking about the impact of the pandemic, Sarda said that suppliers’ BCP plans were hit, and their financing was stopped. He explained how C2FO offers a niche solution which takes care of the financial flows. Sarda said when financial flows are taken care of other things follow.
Amit Bhatia of Jaquar Group
Bhatia highlighted that we need to use collaborated digitisation efforts to deliver the right customer experience.
Saket Gore of The Himalaya Drug Company
During the panel discussion, Gore highlighted that there is a difference between how customer’s shop and how customer’s buy. He said that traditional way of decision making no longer works and delivering customer service in real time is imperative.
FITS Asia and Catalyst Awards were held in partnership with C2FO, TechnePlus, PSA, SealNet, SEEBURGER, Intelizest and GeTS.
C2FO is the world’s largest marketplace for working capital. C2FO works with more than 250 enterprise corporates worldwide. It connects the AP and AR of over one million businesses across 183 countries transacting in 38 currencies on the C2FO platform, enabling enterprises of all sizes to dynamically manage the working capital needs of their suppliers and customers.
C2FO enables suppliers of enterprise clients to have faster and more cost-efficient digital trade financing. C2FO also focuses on bringing in a suite of innovative products like pre-shipment, PO financing, AR and channel financing customised for Asia requirements.
Techneplus is technology solution provider in innovation and customer experience. Techneplus is a global IT service provider, headquartered in
Singapore with delivery centres in Noida and Bengaluru in India, and presence in US, Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia and Dubai.
Techneplus has strong capabilities in offering services to retail, logistics, banking and financial, oil & gas and manufacturing verticals and focuses its offering towards automation, data analytics and AI, Salesforce, document management, Oracle consulting and cloud consulting space.
Malavika Shanker, President of GEC Media Group delivered the closing note. The event was concluded by Catalyst Asia: Individual Awards 2021 and Catalyst Company Awards.
