What People Are Asking

Dear Mr Lee

Thank you for your inquiry and for sharing your challenges in reaching potential clients. Firstly, the primary concern is identifying your firm's target segment, as mentioned in your inquiry – B2B clients needing insolvency and restructuring services. Another important question is how to reach these potential clients using a digital marketing strategy effectively. While increasing your business income is the ultimate goal, it's crucial to understand the likely journey your potential clients go through when searching for an accounting firm specializing in insolvency and restructuring practice.

That said, it's essential to understand these potential clients' buying journey. Assuming they are clear about their need for accounting services in insolvency and restructuring, the first stage of their buying journey is to search for information online regarding the availability of these services. Subsequently, they will gather information from a few selected accounting firms and evaluate their offers before choosing one accounting firm. Once you clearly understand your potential clients' buying journey, it's time to decide how to reach out to them at different stages: awareness, information search, consideration, evaluation, and purchase.

As you pointed out, search advertising is commonly used to reach out in Singapore. However, it can be costly and, if not done correctly, may not be effective. For B2B businesses like accounting firms, an effective website design and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy are necessary before implementing search advertising.
A website design strategy in digital marketing is a plan that outlines your website's goals, the target audience you want to reach, and the design elements that will help you achieve those goals. Key elements include layout, tone, content, navigation, and call-to-action. Following this, you need to work on an SEO strategy to drive traffic to your website. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a set of techniques and practices designed to improve a website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to attract organic (non-paid) traffic by optimizing various aspects of the website to align with search engine algorithms. An effective SEO strategy includes using a sound keyword strategy to help people understand your accounting firm's services, and on-page and off-page optimization to boost traffic.

You might consider starting with the website design and SEO strategy to increase your firm's visibility on Google's search results page and enhance your firm's reputation. Once the website fundamentals are established, you can then explore search advertising. Google has a self-purchase advertising platform, allowing you to purchase search ads without using an advertising agency.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks!

Regards,
Patricia 

Digital roadmaps are conceptualized very differently across organizations. Some go for “digitisation, digitalisation, transformation,” some go for “automation, augmentation, amplification.”, and others go for “products, platforms, ecosystems.” In my opinion, strategy has little contribution to an organization’s eventual digital success. Success should be defined by our market performance and not how intellectually stimulating our PowerPoints are. In this digital age where consumer data is so easy to collect, we can measure our success almost immediately. Thus, we should not spend time trying to argue how solid a piece of strategy is but organize our teams to quickly get to the point of experimenting with actual customers. No one is better than your customers in leading you to success.

Another big hurdle that I see is legacy systems and isolated IoT sensors/devices. Many organizations embark on data quality programs, re-working core systems, and unifying their data architecture, which costs a lot of money, time, and resources. The irony is that once they are done (usually never done to perfection), these technologies are obsolete again… This is why today, we are strongly recommending a “lego-block” approach where anyone can bring their own data, bring their own devices, bring their own systems, and we use a Data Fabric as a real-time data translator and an Orchestrator to compose independent modules into new business capabilities. This architecture is what Gartner terms “Composable Intelligent Businesses,” and this is something worthwhile to explore further.

Digital roadmaps are conceptualized very differently across organizations. Some go for “digitisation, digitalisation, transformation,” some go for “automation, augmentation, amplification.”, and others go for “products, platforms, ecosystems.” In my opinion, strategy has little contribution to an organization’s eventual digital success. Success should be defined by our market performance and not how intellectually stimulating our PowerPoints are. In this digital age where consumer data is so easy to collect, we can measure our success almost immediately. Thus, we should not spend time trying to argue how solid a piece of strategy is but organize our teams to quickly get to the point of experimenting with actual customers. No one is better than your customers in leading you to success.

Another big hurdle that I see is legacy systems and isolated IoT sensors/devices. Many organizations embark on data quality programs, re-working core systems, and unifying their data architecture, which costs a lot of money, time, and resources. The irony is that once they are done (usually never done to perfection), these technologies are obsolete again… This is why today, we are strongly recommending a “lego-block” approach where anyone can bring their own data, bring their own devices, bring their own systems, and we use a Data Fabric as a real-time data translator and an Orchestrator to compose independent modules into new business capabilities. This architecture is what Gartner terms “Composable Intelligent Businesses,” and this is something worthwhile to explore further.

The crux of the issue is not emerging technology or any technology for that matter. An organization that has a culture and organizational structure that supports innovation often leads the pack in the successful implementation of emerging technology. This core capability is organizational in nature: The freedom to experiment rapidly.

Organizations should never chase after technology. In today’s digital era, companies thrive by being the fastest to deliver what consumers want rather than what they (the companies) can do. Given that consumer preferences and the competitive landscape are changing so rapidly, the only way for companies to catch up is to experiment with multiple use cases as rapidly and cheaply as possible by pruning lousy features, improving promising features, and re-orchestrating good features in an iterative manner.

It is through the luxury of rapid experimentation that teams can test out all kinds of solutions for their customers: from just process innovation to mainstream tech to emerging tech, and the solution that they eventually choose must be the one that delivers the strongest customer value proposition at the lowest cost to the company. From my experience, emerging tech is often not the best solution, but unless the team has the luxury to try them all out, they would never know.

Note: Customers can include consumers, as well as external and internal stakeholders. As long as they are the beneficiaries of our products or services, we see them as customers.

The “luxury” of rapid experimentation is not a function of company wealth. It has to do with how the company works - namely, who makes product and service decisions (it should be the people closest to the market), and how teams are incentivized to create the best solution and not “just the most convenient solution that works.” Give our teams space and empowerment to experiment, and naturally, emerging tech will be included in one or more prototypes.  

The crux of the issue is not emerging technology or any technology for that matter. An organization that has a culture and organizational structure that supports innovation often leads the pack in the successful implementation of emerging technology. This core capability is organizational in nature: The freedom to experiment rapidly.

Organizations should never chase after technology. In today’s digital era, companies thrive by being the fastest to deliver what consumers want rather than what they (the companies) can do. Given that consumer preferences and the competitive landscape are changing so rapidly, the only way for companies to catch up is to experiment with multiple use cases as rapidly and cheaply as possible by pruning lousy features, improving promising features, and re-orchestrating good features in an iterative manner.

It is through the luxury of rapid experimentation that teams can test out all kinds of solutions for their customers: from just process innovation to mainstream tech to emerging tech, and the solution that they eventually choose must be the one that delivers the strongest customer value proposition at the lowest cost to the company. From my experience, emerging tech is often not the best solution, but unless the team has the luxury to try them all out, they would never know.

Note: Customers can include consumers, as well as external and internal stakeholders. As long as they are the beneficiaries of our products or services, we see them as customers.

The “luxury” of rapid experimentation is not a function of company wealth. It has to do with how the company works - namely, who makes product and service decisions (it should be the people closest to the market), and how teams are incentivized to create the best solution and not “just the most convenient solution that works.” Give our teams space and empowerment to experiment, and naturally, emerging tech will be included in one or more prototypes.  

Thanks for reaching out to me through USAEI. Your experience with analytics is not uncommon. Most organizations have recently complained that they don't see value from their analytics, machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and even artificial intelligence (AI) endeavors.   

The problem does not lie with the analytics technology. Rather, analytics is only a tool that guides, validates, automates, augment, and amplify business decisions. The problem lies with how most organizations define the business value that they want analytics to solve. 

These are some of the common problems that I have seen, and one leads to another:

1. Business managers do not have a concrete idea of what they want to solve and hopes that analytics can help them ask the right questions. Analytics, ML, DL, AI are tools, they are incapable of asking questions. However, given the right questions, they can help you find answers and insights that humans cannot match. Just as we don't expect excel to generate business hypothesis, we can't rely on analytics, ML, DL, and AI to do the same. They are just a very powerful tool, not a domain expert.

2. Business managers have a poor definition of value and impact. A good value proposition is a concrete statement with 3 components as a fill-in-the-blanks statement: As a <which type of customer>, I want <what features/products/services>, to achieve <what objectives do I really care about>. Type of customers can be other businesses, consumers, internal staff, management, and any other stakeholders. If we find that we cannot fill in the blanks with a convincing statement, then it means that the idea is either too vague, broad, naive, confusing, or not valuable. Very often than not, once we have a good set of value propositions, we realized that we don't need analytics, ML, DL, and AI to solve it. Most business value can immediately be realized with a better process, incentive design, platform business model that directly address what the customer wants and not what the business can do.

3.  Using analytics, ML, DL, and AI like how we use excel - reporting. The value of analytics, ML, DL, and AI does not lie in cost-cutting type of automation or reporting. Its augmentation and amplification, meaning that they are designed to help us deliver value by making better decisions given the business questions. The corresponding output of analytics, ML, DL, and AI is actionable insights. However, for them to derive actionable insights requires (1) and (2) to be defined first, else its like trying to discover if there's something that might interest somebody, somewhere in the data.

4. Next, the business competency of the data analyst. There is a hierarchy of competency for data analyst and it starts with experience and communication. A good data analyst is also one with sufficient business intuition to understand what the users of the solution needs and how we can find them in the data using the latest tools. If a data analyst is always behind the screen and does not spend a significant amount of time talking to stakeholders and conducting small demonstrations to solicit feedback, then he will never be able to create impactful actionable insights.

5.  Lastly, the technical competency of the data analyst. Technical and domain experience are complementary. Strong technical experience will make up for domain experience and as their domain experience increases through experimentation, their value doubles. Knowing how to use analytics software is not a technical expertise. Technical skillsets revolve around knowing how to make data speak, how different models work, how to create visualizations that communicate multiple ideas almost instantly, and how results from one experiment lead to another, and another, before finally uncovering actionable insights. Thus, in truth, there are no paid analytics software in the market that can outperform the best suite of open-source tools in the market if the data analyst is competent. Using off-the-shelf analytics software simply allows data analysts to hide their insufficiencies behind automated features.

As you would have realized by now, any analytics projects that we task, regardless whether other organizations brag about it or being written by big three consulting agencies, they are ultimately irrelevant until we have points (1) to (4) sorted out.

Jack

Thanks for reaching out to me through USAEI. Your experience with analytics is not uncommon. Most organizations have recently complained that they don't see value from their analytics, machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and even artificial intelligence (AI) endeavors.   

The problem does not lie with the analytics technology. Rather, analytics is only a tool that guides, validates, automates, augment, and amplify business decisions. The problem lies with how most organizations define the business value that they want analytics to solve. 

These are some of the common problems that I have seen, and one leads to another:

1. Business managers do not have a concrete idea of what they want to solve and hopes that analytics can help them ask the right questions. Analytics, ML, DL, AI are tools, they are incapable of asking questions. However, given the right questions, they can help you find answers and insights that humans cannot match. Just as we don't expect excel to generate business hypothesis, we can't rely on analytics, ML, DL, and AI to do the same. They are just a very powerful tool, not a domain expert.

2. Business managers have a poor definition of value and impact. A good value proposition is a concrete statement with 3 components as a fill-in-the-blanks statement: As a <which type of customer>, I want <what features/products/services>, to achieve <what objectives do I really care about>. Type of customers can be other businesses, consumers, internal staff, management, and any other stakeholders. If we find that we cannot fill in the blanks with a convincing statement, then it means that the idea is either too vague, broad, naive, confusing, or not valuable. Very often than not, once we have a good set of value propositions, we realized that we don't need analytics, ML, DL, and AI to solve it. Most business value can immediately be realized with a better process, incentive design, platform business model that directly address what the customer wants and not what the business can do.

3.  Using analytics, ML, DL, and AI like how we use excel - reporting. The value of analytics, ML, DL, and AI does not lie in cost-cutting type of automation or reporting. Its augmentation and amplification, meaning that they are designed to help us deliver value by making better decisions given the business questions. The corresponding output of analytics, ML, DL, and AI is actionable insights. However, for them to derive actionable insights requires (1) and (2) to be defined first, else its like trying to discover if there's something that might interest somebody, somewhere in the data.

4. Next, the business competency of the data analyst. There is a hierarchy of competency for data analyst and it starts with experience and communication. A good data analyst is also one with sufficient business intuition to understand what the users of the solution needs and how we can find them in the data using the latest tools. If a data analyst is always behind the screen and does not spend a significant amount of time talking to stakeholders and conducting small demonstrations to solicit feedback, then he will never be able to create impactful actionable insights.

5.  Lastly, the technical competency of the data analyst. Technical and domain experience are complementary. Strong technical experience will make up for domain experience and as their domain experience increases through experimentation, their value doubles. Knowing how to use analytics software is not a technical expertise. Technical skillsets revolve around knowing how to make data speak, how different models work, how to create visualizations that communicate multiple ideas almost instantly, and how results from one experiment lead to another, and another, before finally uncovering actionable insights. Thus, in truth, there are no paid analytics software in the market that can outperform the best suite of open-source tools in the market if the data analyst is competent. Using off-the-shelf analytics software simply allows data analysts to hide their insufficiencies behind automated features.

As you would have realized by now, any analytics projects that we task, regardless whether other organizations brag about it or being written by big three consulting agencies, they are ultimately irrelevant until we have points (1) to (4) sorted out.

Jack

At the start

1. Base on the business strategy you have in mind, draft the organisation structure and the job roles
2. Draft the Job Description to facilitate hiring and selection of the employee of a good fit as well as ensure that the job scope is clear to the Employee
3. Ensure that the employment contract is in compliance with MOM Key Employment Terms (KETs) in addition to the legal terms drafted by the lawyers.
4. This should follow by an Employee Handbook which outlines other Employment Conditions, Leave, Salary and Benefits Guidelines; Code of Conduct and Workplace Guidelines

As you grow

1. As the Organisation grow to about 8-10 employees, develop a performance management system to define Key performance indicators and desired attributes to enable motivation and recognition
2. Develop learning and development process and guidelines to facilitate learning and career growth
3. When you attain a staff strength of 25-30 employees, hire an experience Human Resource Professional (about 3-4 years) to manage the HR fundamentals and employee relations and support the business growth.

1. Firstly, it would be good to define the type of organisation culture you would like to instil by defining your Organisation Values
2. From the Values, you could define the core competencies with the desired behaviours and attributes you would like all employees including leaders to have
3. Incorporate the Values and Core Competencies in the On Boarding process for the new hires to set the expectations of the culture and behaviours
4. Incorporate these core competencies in the performance management process to accord the importance and recognise desired behaviours
5. Plan a quarterly Value in Action (VIA) programme to recognise employees who walk the Values and demonstrate the desired Behaviours

At the start

1. Base on the business strategy you have in mind, draft the organisation structure and the job roles
2. Draft the Job Description to facilitate hiring and selection of the employee of a good fit as well as ensure that the job scope is clear to the Employee
3. Ensure that the employment contract is in compliance with MOM Key Employment Terms (KETs) in addition to the legal terms drafted by the lawyers.
4. This should follow by an Employee Handbook which outlines other Employment Conditions, Leave, Salary and Benefits Guidelines; Code of Conduct and Workplace Guidelines

As you grow

1. As the Organisation grow to about 8-10 employees, develop a performance management system to define Key performance indicators and desired attributes to enable motivation and recognition
2. Develop learning and development process and guidelines to facilitate learning and career growth
3. When you attain a staff strength of 25-30 employees, hire an experience Human Resource Professional (about 3-4 years) to manage the HR fundamentals and employee relations and support the business growth.

1. Firstly, it would be good to define the type of organisation culture you would like to instil by defining your Organisation Values
2. From the Values, you could define the core competencies with the desired behaviours and attributes you would like all employees including leaders to have
3. Incorporate the Values and Core Competencies in the On Boarding process for the new hires to set the expectations of the culture and behaviours
4. Incorporate these core competencies in the performance management process to accord the importance and recognise desired behaviours
5. Plan a quarterly Value in Action (VIA) programme to recognise employees who walk the Values and demonstrate the desired Behaviours

For a quick solution, install a remote tool like Teamviewer onto her office PC, so that she can still work from home. For server access and if you want tight security, it's better to install a hardware firewall with VPN feature. In this way, you can control who can gain remote access back to your office.

Yes, why not? An influencer marketing strategy can help you reach out to your target market. It works well because influencers connect your brand with their followers. The followers listen and trust recommendations from the influencers.

Start small, look for a micro-influencer who has between 1,000 to 1,000,000 followers and is an expert in his/her respective field, such as a fitness blogger or a chocolate lover. The micro-influencers can connect on a much deeper level with their followers and build higher social engagement rates. They interact with their followers in an informal setting regularly through sharing tips, photos, daily life experiences around topics they are the experts.  With the frequent postings on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, their followers respond via likes, shares, follows, questions and comments. You may engage a micro-influencer who know your product category well.

Develop a campaign with the micro-influencer and see how he/she can share your brand story with his/her followers. Your campaign is more likely to be accepted by their followers as they can relate a lot more to the micro-influencer who is like one of them in real life.

Consider using a micro-influencer to promote your brand, and chances are you will see more people trust recommendations by influencers. Please contact me if you need any further information on the topic.

I'm glad that you have recognized the importance of SEO.  SEO stands for "search engine optimization".  It is the practice of increasing the quality and number of people to a website. Most SMEs have limited resources for website marketing. I can suggest a few strategies that would help you increase your website ranking on search engines.

We always say that content is the crucial driver of a website's ranking. Develop and publish quality content for your target customers would improve your website's authority, relevance and trust. You should also update your website content.  Search engines feel strongly about updated content as it is a relevant indicator of a website's relevancy to the customers.  I would recommend you to plan a schedule to make updates regularly.

Another key point to an effective SEO strategy is to build a link-worthy website.  You need to create relevant links within the text. It helps improve your search engine rankings and the ranking of the page. You should also describe the links by using linking keywords, so people get to know what exactly the content.

Lastly, using the right sets of keyword phrases is essential.  You need to identify and use keywords correctly throughout a page on your website. You should consider using keywords in headings, link text and photos to improve search engine ranking.

Follow the suggestions, and an effective SEO strategy would help your company reach out to more potential customers and ultimately increase conversion rates. Please feel free to write to me again if you have any further question.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

Scaling a business upwards is a problem many SMEs face. The issue is multi-faceted and is not limited to constraints in financial resources but also other organizational issue such as inertia to change. One of the ways to achieve scale is to explore growth by acquisition. This is often said to be a riskier proposition but if done carefully and skilfully, an SME can achieve scale very quickly, acquiring valuable resources such as customers, suppliers, talents, expertise and knowhow. Other ways of scaling the business include franchising, licensing, joint ventures and strategic alliances.

There are differences in installing a free anti-virus vs paid ones.

First, free anti-virus is standalone. You won't know if your colleague PC is infected with a virus. Very often, a free anti-virus bundle with other third-party bloated software or adverts during the installation. It installs non-related software and tends to slow down your PC performance.

Why? The developers that create this free software needs some form of revenue to support their project. Also, they’re not obliged to provide the latest virus protection and immediate support when your PC is infected. If budget is the main concern, Windows built-in standalone defender works okay though.

The main reason why business still buys paid anti-virus is for the support and latest protection. Most importantly, you get to see an overall view of all PC health in a single dashboard.

It's a great decision to backup your office PCs. Unlike a NAS or server, your PC has probably only one hard disk. That means if it crashes, your data is lost too. Though business PC offers three years onsite warranty, it does not cover data recovery if your hard disk fails.

Firstly, it's recommended to use a centralised NAS storage to store every PC data, over a portable hard disk attached to every PC. It's overall cheaper and easier for any engineer to monitor if a backup fails.

Now, PC backup works best if all your PCs are linked to your office network mostly via wired, and not wireless. Why? Because PC backup will transfer the data across your office network and uses high network bandwidth. This network consumption results in slower internal network speed, which in turns affects a slower Internet and share application and files access.

No matter how good backup software is, it consumes PC resources when the backup kicks in. Hence, you'll experience PC lagging. It's important to plan the backup strategy at staggered timing during off-peak hours like lunch hours. Also, a good backup software should give you the flexibility to backup specific files at scheduled timing, and provides notification if the backup fails. I do not see any need to backup the PC operating system as you can recover them from the manufacturer recovery image.

Dismissal would be more appropriate based on misconduct. It would be advisable to build a case of poor performance, such as performance appraisal, verbal or written warning letters, etc. so that termination of her service would be deemed reasonable and fair.

It should include Mission & Core Values, Employment structure, Benefits & Welfare, Training & Development, Workplace Resolution, Disciplinary, etc.

There is no one size fits all approach to going overseas. Much depends on the risk appetite, of the firm. SMEs considering going overseas can consider exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, acquisition or green-field operations. Each of these options carry benefits and risks.

Venturing overseas carry a fair amount of risks and rewards. SMEs planning to go overseas are advised to have a partner or guide that understands the market and can help the SME navigate through the treacherous grounds.

There is no one size fits all approach to going overseas. Much depends on the risk appetite, of the firm. SMEs considering going overseas can consider exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, acquisition or green-field operations. Each of these options carry benefits and risks.

Venturing overseas carry a fair amount of risks and rewards. SMEs planning to go overseas are advised to have a partner or guide that understands the market and can help the SME navigate through the treacherous grounds.

There is no one size fits all approach to going overseas. Much depends on the risk appetite, of the firm. SMEs considering going overseas can consider exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, acquisition or green-field operations. Each of these options carry benefits and risks.

Venturing overseas carry a fair amount of risks and rewards. SMEs planning to go overseas are advised to have a partner or guide that understands the market and can help the SME navigate through the treacherous grounds.

There is no one size fits all approach to going overseas. Much depends on the risk appetite, of the firm. SMEs considering going overseas can consider exporting, licensing, franchising, joint ventures, acquisition or green-field operations. Each of these options carry benefits and risks.

Venturing overseas carry a fair amount of risks and rewards. SMEs planning to go overseas are advised to have a partner or guide that understands the market and can help the SME navigate through the treacherous grounds.

There are many important factors to consider when looking at overseas expansion. First and foremost, SMEs need to understand what is their primary motivation to internationalize.

Different companies may be motivated by different reasons. Some of the possible motivations for internationalization are:

• to follow and support their clients’ overseas expansion;
• to compensate for home market saturation or decline;
• possibility or necessity of increasing sales;
• to access resources and / reduce its costs of labour;
• to diversify its operations and associated risks; •
• to take advantage of growth opportunities in other markets;
• to exploit economies of scale and reach;
• to gain knowledge about other clients and markets, the capacity and strength of competitors at a global level; etc.

Once the SMEs is clear on its motivation, having the right business model can minimize some of the risks of internationalization

There are many important factors to consider when looking at overseas expansion. First and foremost, SMEs need to understand what is their primary motivation to internationalize.

Different companies may be motivated by different reasons. Some of the possible motivations for internationalization are:

• to follow and support their clients’ overseas expansion;
• to compensate for home market saturation or decline;
• possibility or necessity of increasing sales;
• to access resources and / reduce its costs of labour;
• to diversify its operations and associated risks; •
• to take advantage of growth opportunities in other markets;
• to exploit economies of scale and reach;
• to gain knowledge about other clients and markets, the capacity and strength of competitors at a global level; etc.

Once the SMEs is clear on its motivation, having the right business model can minimize some of the risks of internationalization

There are many important factors to consider when looking at overseas expansion. First and foremost, SMEs need to understand what is their primary motivation to internationalize.

Different companies may be motivated by different reasons. Some of the possible motivations for internationalization are:

• to follow and support their clients’ overseas expansion;
• to compensate for home market saturation or decline;
• possibility or necessity of increasing sales;
• to access resources and / reduce its costs of labour;
• to diversify its operations and associated risks; •
• to take advantage of growth opportunities in other markets;
• to exploit economies of scale and reach;
• to gain knowledge about other clients and markets, the capacity and strength of competitors at a global level; etc.

Once the SMEs is clear on its motivation, having the right business model can minimize some of the risks of internationalization

There are many important factors to consider when looking at overseas expansion. First and foremost, SMEs need to understand what is their primary motivation to internationalize.

Different companies may be motivated by different reasons. Some of the possible motivations for internationalization are:

• to follow and support their clients’ overseas expansion;
• to compensate for home market saturation or decline;
• possibility or necessity of increasing sales;
• to access resources and / reduce its costs of labour;
• to diversify its operations and associated risks; •
• to take advantage of growth opportunities in other markets;
• to exploit economies of scale and reach;
• to gain knowledge about other clients and markets, the capacity and strength of competitors at a global level; etc.

Once the SMEs is clear on its motivation, having the right business model can minimize some of the risks of internationalization

Having a lot of data is not the objective. What we really want is useful data. For data to be useful, it must be both accurate and representative. Data integrity issues such as duplicated entries, multiple identifiers for the same item, incomplete fields, and selective recording may cause an analytics system to recommend the wrong decisions.

Having a lot of data is not the objective. What we really want is useful data. For data to be useful, it must be both accurate and representative. Data integrity issues such as duplicated entries, multiple identifiers for the same item, incomplete fields, and selective recording may cause an analytics system to recommend the wrong decisions.

SMEs must recognise that the new drivers of digital transformation are strategic in nature, with technology playing a secondary role as enablers. They need to first figure out how to adapt their business models with the new drivers, before evaluating what technology will best apply.

SMEs must recognise that the new drivers of digital transformation are strategic in nature, with technology playing a secondary role as enablers. They need to first figure out how to adapt their business models with the new drivers, before evaluating what technology will best apply.

Digital Transformation is a set of new business drivers that obliterates barriers to industries that were previously built on old drivers of success. These drivers include consumer networks and advocacy; “co-opetition” and the platform business model; data, analytics, and artificial intelligence; innovation, rapid experimentation and agile practices; value proposition-based decision making and digital-savvy leadership.

Digital Transformation is a set of new business drivers that obliterates barriers to industries that were previously built on old drivers of success. These drivers include consumer networks and advocacy; “co-opetition” and the platform business model; data, analytics, and artificial intelligence; innovation, rapid experimentation and agile practices; value proposition-based decision making and digital-savvy leadership.