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Business Trends Entrepreneurs

12 Apps Changing Shopping Culture Forever

These genius shopping apps makes shopping with a mobile phone easier than ever.

  • The latest mobile app technology is turning smartphone users into smart shoppers.
  • Mobile shopping apps can help you save money and time, and alert you to hot deals on the items you’ve had your eye on.
  • Digital wallet apps, such as Android Pay and Apple Pay, simplify the checkout process, and they are accepted at hundreds of retailers nationwide.
  • This article is for smart shoppers and business owners who want to generate new leads and attract new customers.

Mobile shopping doesn’t just mean visiting a retailer’s website and making purchases on a mobile phone. The latest mobile app technology is turning smartphone users into smart shoppers as well. Here are 12 apps at the forefront of technology and shopping.

1. Instacart

Instacart has become a favorite of consumers because of the same-day grocery and product delivery option. Consumers aren’t limited to grocery stores; they can choose from various other retailers, such as CVS and Walgreens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many consumers turned to grocery delivery to avoid public spaces. What many found was that grocery delivery is an easier way to get the household food shopping done.

2. Savings.com

Savings.com offers access to coupons and deals across many of the most popular retailers in the U.S. From Shein to Home Depot to Macy’s department stores, Savings.com offers consumers wide range of deals all in one place. Whether you’re in the market for new home and garden goods, looking for travel products, or even wanting to purchase wireless internet, broadband, and cable, Savings.com avails shoppers to discounts on all sorts of products from major retailers in various verticals.

3. Honey

Honey is the smart shopping assistant you can use on your browser or smartphone. Track prices on specific items, get automatic coupons, and compare online retailers automatically. Honey can also be used as an extension with Google Chrome, automatically applying deals from around the internet to each transaction.

4. CamFind

Visual search, which uses recognition technology to make it easy to find products on a mobile phone, is one technology that’s changing how we shop. CamFind is one of those apps. It is free on both Android and iOS.

Using mobile visual search, CamFind makes it easy for shoppers to find more information about an item and where they can buy it. For instance, users can simply take a picture of an item, and the app identifies the product and tells users where they can find the best deal.

CamFind’s interface gives price comparisons as well as information on any item that’s photographed. This information is particularly helpful for big technology purchases, such as televisions. CamFind allows you to simply take a picture of a product to determine if you are getting the best deal.

5. ShopSavvy

ShopSavvy is a free app for iOS or Android. It lets you scan any barcode or search for any product and instantly find out which retailer offers the best price. The app scans millions of products from some 40,000 stores, including Amazon, Macy’s, Target, Best Buy, Walmart and Newegg.

Some of those stores let you buy through the ShopSavvy app and earn 20% cash back when you do. Other features include the ability to save and track your favorite products’ prices. You can send yourself an email with what you’ve searched for so you can purchase the product later, as well as create wish lists and shopping lists.

6. nate

Nate is marketed as an artificially intelligent app that makes it easy to centralize all purchasing from within a single platform. Consumers can make and share lists, buy products from any site, create payment plans, and even send gifts.

7. ThredUP

ThredUP is like a local consignment store that has the best options from all over the country. You can access all offerings from the website as well as Apple and Android devices

8. Digital wallets

Google Pay and Apple Pay are examples of digital wallets. Google’s version is available on Android for free, but Apple Pay and Apple Wallet are part of the iPhone’s preloaded ecosystem. Digital wallets store your various credit and bank cards, and encrypt your data. You can then just wave your phone in front of the contactless checkout counter.

Google Pay is accepted at millions of stores, including Best Buy, JetBlue, Macy’s, Petco, Subway and Walgreens. It can also connect to your loyalty cards for brands such as Walgreens and Coca-Cola, so you still earn rewards points. At some outlets, such as Jet.com, you can get special discounts for using Google Pay.

Apple Pay is also accepted at millions of stores, including Ace Hardware, Barneys, Crate and Barrel, Foot Locker, Office Depot, and Staples. You can also use Apple Pay to donate to a variety of charities, such as UNICEF and Feeding America.

9. Ibotta

The Ibotta app is free for both Android and iOS and is great for people who like to get money back when they shop. This app works with most retailers, and you can scan your receipts, save deals, and access app-specific deals to save money. The app features regular offers that you can apply to your account to get bonus money back when you scan your receipt. Ibotta offers cents back on certain items you buy; when you scan your receipt, the purchase is confirmed and the balance is added to your account, which you can cash out after you reach $20 in rewards.

10. LikeToKnowIt

LikeToKnowIt crowdsources the best items, curated from influencers on various platforms who can create shoppable videos and posts. The Shop the Pic section makes it easy to buy the exact item you’ve seen and fallen in love with.

11. Dosh

This app links to your debit card, and you can shop with it at the stores you already use. You can also use the Dosh app to access your frequently used websites, to get deals and money-back offers. You can do a quick payout to Venmo, PayPal or another payment platform after you have gotten $15 in your account. You can also get deals on hotels.

12. Etsy

Etsy makes it easy to find indie artists who are creating one-of-a-kind items. The handmade e-commerce site offers everything from jewelry and custom clothes to children’s toys and stationery.

12 Mobile Apps Changing Shopping Forever [Businessnewsdaily]

Categories
Entrepreneurs

5 Tips for Improving Your Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is the one thing that most of us crave, but few of us really attain. This doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing, but in today’s busy, work-focused world, it can be hard to separate time for yourself and your family. Fortunately, we have a few ways to help you inch closer to a healthy, viable work-life balance!

Allow Free Time in Your Schedule

Many people just assume that free time happens naturally once they clock out from work. While this may be true for some, it’s not true for most people. As soon as you get home from work (even if you work from home), you’re likely bombarded with chores, family obligations, and a long personal to-do list. Therefore, it’s vital that you set aside real free time in your schedule. Even if it’s just one or two hours a week, it is a great way to actually recharge your batteries. During this time, you don’t need to feel obligated to do anything but relax and enjoy yourself!

Take Time for Your Health

Many people pursue a good work-life balance because it helps promote a healthy mind and body. However, part of this balance includes taking out time for your own health needs. Whether you want to visit a therapist once a week or go to the gym on the weekends, taking care of your health is a must. If you’re in need of ideas or assistance for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, be sure to contact the experts at RCMC Medical Center as soon as possible.

Talk With Your Employer (or Clients)

Whether you work at a company or you’re self-employed, you need to have a chat with your professional associates. Why? Because most other people will not know if you’re struggling with your work-life balance unless you tell them. So, don’t be afraid to talk to your employer, clients, or coworkers about taking some time for yourself. In most cases, they will feel the same way and will be more open to negotiating a more relaxed, manageable work schedule.

Set Digital Boundaries

Even if you’ve clocked out and gotten into your comfy clothes, the workday may not be over. This is especially true in the age of remote work, when people struggle to unplug from their various work devices. This is why it is extremely important to set digital boundaries. Essentially, you will have to tell people when you are and are not willing to handle work-related tasks, answer messages, and so on. In doing so, you can help ensure that the stresses of work don’t follow you home.

Take Inventory of Your Energy Levels

A big part of attaining a solid work-life balance is having the energy for every aspect of your life. If you dedicate too much energy to your work, you may not have enough left to spend quality time with your friends and family. Conversely, if you only focus on enjoying your personal and social life, the quality of your work might suffer. So, take regular inventory of how you’re feeling and how much energy you have left at the end of the day. This will help you better understand your limitations and (hopefully) avoid burnout.

Categories
Entrepreneurs

The Top 9 Ways To Grow Your Business in 2021

2020 was INSANE for many of us with all kinds of global ‘crazy’ happening and on top of that, we all had our normal life events and challenges going on too.

I personally had a big year, giving birth to my second child in January 2020, only 4 months after coming back to self-employment following my tenure as the youngest Executive Director and Head of Campus at a university in Australian history and ended the year with 4 weeks notice of a mandatory house move 2,300km away as part of my husband’s Police service. However, despite everything, my business has grown in revenue by over 800% in 2020. 

How Did I Grow by 800% During a Pandemic – ((and having a baby, and moving 2,300km away??)

  1. I work online where you have access to a global market 24 hours a day – AND you don’t have to be present to serve it
  2. I have cloned myself indefinitely and unlimitedly by taking my knowledge out of my head, and putting it into online courses
  3. I stuck to ONE goal and focused on it with unwavering determination
  4. I applied strategy and analytics.  My one goal then had a number of tasks to be executed, and metrics that would tell me whether or not I was getting there
  5. I focused on doing the tasks that ONLY I could do, let go of my inner control freak and asked others for help
  6. I focused on ‘excellent is better than perfect’ when it came to making new courses, products and services.  NOBODY wins from an unpublished product. I took a deep breath, pressed published, got feedback and didn’t waste time moving from ‘Version 1.0’ to Version 2.
  7. I never stopped learning how to do things better

Pick ONE Goal

I love simplicity. When you only have ONE clear, concise goal to work towards, everything in your life feels lighter, easier and more manageable. I personally set one goal per year, and then all of my ‘activities’ revolve around directly achieving that one single goal. This strategy is backed up in a couple of books that I LOVE that help you get clear on your one, massive goal: “The Miracle Equation” by Hal Elrod who calls this principle ‘The Power of Singularity’, and “The One Thing” by Gary Keller who tells us that to create massive results, all we need to do is find that ONE thing that makes everything else easier or unnecessary.   When it comes to marketing, many business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, coaches and experts get completely overwhelmed with all of the different methods, strategies and ‘blow up your business now’ hacks being promised by hungry marketers – and either end up doing a million things poorly, or absolutely nothing at all!  

So whilst this article is going to share 9 methods with you – there is strategy to how they may be selected for your business.

Having been in business for 14 years now, I can assure you that the best way to succeed is to have one clear objective (yes, just ONE) for your business each year.

Then use a carefully selected combination of marketing strategies that collectively and individually have the sole purpose of achieving that one, single goal.

The one goal you choose will be unique to you, but it must be something very measurable

eg:

  • X number of students in your online course(s)
  • X number of members in your membership program
  • X number of clients for a particular service

To Pick Your ONE Miracle-Making Goal for 2021:

  1. First, come up with your financial revenue target for 2021
  2. THEN work out how many customers you need for each product/service in order to reach that financial figure
  3. Then work out how many customers you will need to get per month, per week and per day in order to meet that target
  4. Believe in it.  Make it completely non-negotiable that you will commit to making it happen with absolute dedication

Make Your Marketing Matter

From here, your marketing activities become simple, because no matter how many or how few marketing methods you choose to take on, they all have ONE clear purpose with measurable markers.

Eg, if your goal is to get X number of members in your membership program and you select the following marketing channels:

  • You will use Social media to connect with your audience, build relationships > lead them to become paid members
  • You will use your Website for establishing your credibility, sharing valuable information, encouraging visitors to join email list > and ultimately to sign up to your paid membership
  • You will use Emails to build familiarity and trust, establish a relationship, share valuable content > and to ultimately become paying members
  • You will use YouTube to give tasters of your content, build familiarity, build a following > and ultimately encourage them to become paying members
  • You will use Books to establish your expert credibility, get targeted customers > become members

There are endless examples – but you get the picture!

ONE goal – as many strategies as you want to use, but all with that ONE single mission at the center.  

So, what is your ONE BIG GOAL FOR 2021? (share in the comments below!)  

9 Ways To Grow Your Business in 2021 

1. Create an Online Course

Online courses have a huge array of benefits for any business, coach, consultant and expert.

Not only do online courses immediately provide an additional income stream into your business as soon as you publish one, it’s passive income too!

With online courses you basically clone yourself – giving you SO much time freedom. Whether you want more freedom to chill out on the beach, or do more on your business – an online course allows you the choice to stop having to see clients one on one and instead serves thousands of them all at the same time by sending them through your video training instead!

If you have a smartphone and an internet connection, you already have enough to create your own online course – without any extra expense or complex tech.

Get my FREE ‘Course Creation Starter Kit: www.sarahcordiner.com/starterkit 

You can create little mini-courses to use a free lead magnets (email list builders), authority flagship courses and even high-ticket coaching programs. To create a simple lead magnet course to grow your email list, simply record your top 5 tips in your area of expertise in 5 short videos, and use that as mini lead magnet course that you can deliver to your prospects by email when they sign up to your list.

And that’s not ALL online courses can do!

A lead magnet mini course is only ONE type of course that you can create to grow your business and your bottom line!

Did you know that there are FIVE different types of online course that you can create – all of which have extremely powerful, but quite different benefits for the course creator?

Before you get started on creating your online courses, it is critical that you know which of the 5 types is best for you and your business so that it helps you quickly achieve your goals.

I have created a quick quiz to help you identify exactly which one is right for you – and as soon as you complete the quiz you will be sent an email with your results and a full description of all of the 5 types of online course too.

 

Take the free quiz here:

http://maintraining.com.au/quiz-whatcourse 

 

2. Video and Live Streaming

According to research by CISCO, video content is and will remain the number 1 form of consumed content on the internet.

The report states that videos “will continue to be in the range of 80-90% of total IP traffic. Globally, IP video traffic will account for 82 percent of traffic by 2022”.

Notably, this article by Avasam shows some amazing up to date stats about the power of video marketing: > https://www.avasam.com/100-video-marketing-stats-you-need-to-know-in-2020/

This is absolutely huge and backs up the point that I have been hammering into edupreneurs for years – YOU MUST be creating and publishing videos if you want to have any influence or impact in your market.

To take it up one notch further – there has also been published research stating that people watch live videos for over 3 times longer than they watch a pre-recorded video.

With live streaming capability now available on YouTube (once you hit 1,000 subscribers), LinkedInFacebook and more, it’s easier than ever to reach huge numbers of people from your mobile phone to theirs, with the click of a single button.

But it’s not just any old videos that are trending.

The past few years have been insanely hot for educational, information and how-to videos. Research by Curata, sited in a Forbes article shows that tutorial videos and demonstration videos account for the most popular videos on the internet!

Further – live videos get you exceptional reach and maximum relationship-building opportunity.  There is nothing more ‘real’ than somebody who is live.

My ‘30 Days 30 Tips Challenge’ has been designed to help you grow your expert profile using live videos.  

  1. Find 52 questions that your audience are asking, and answer each one in individual videos.
  2. Record them all in a couple of days worth of filming, then mass upload them to YouTube using the ‘scheduled publish’ option.

With only a couple of days worth of work, you’ll have a video preloaded to release on YouTube every single week for an entire year.

If you need help coming up with video content ideas that your audience will LOVE, join my ‘#30Days30Tips Challenge’.

 

3. Authoring Print Books and eBooks

According to Author Earnings, over $1 million eBooks are sold every day on Amazon alone.

Short of gaining exposure to millions of people by having your knowledge and education on the pages of a book, you also gain exceptional industry credibility when you have published work.

I have published 12 books, and without any real marketing (other than an email to my list and some posts on Facebook) I have sold more than 13,000 copies of my books on Amazon Kindle alone.  That doesn’t even count any of my hard copy sales at all.

Here is what your author dashboard will look like showing your monthly sales:

Although it’s hardly a million dollar income stream, from that screen shot above, I’d sold 446 books in 10 countries in just 90 days, from ONE platform alone, whilst doing absolutely nothing other than the odd share on Facebook (automated of course!)  Not bad, huh?

Now aside from them bringing in enough money to cover my coffee habit via a nice little cheque from Amazon each month, they also serve another, very powerful function for any business owner or expert….

In the front pages of all of my books, I include a link to a free online course which many of my readers take up – thus growing a targeted email list of people who often later invest in my full Edupreneur Academy.

Book sales won’t necessarily make you a millionaire on their own, but they have certainly worked for me in affirming extra credibility, harvesting thousands of targeted customers from one of the biggest marketplaces in the world, and subsequently have them invest in my other products and services.

Imagine getting over 13,000 new eager clients? 

What would that do for your business?

The best bit is that becoming a published author is nowhere near as hard as you may imagine – and in fact, I have an online course in my Edupreneur Academy on ‘How To Write and Self-Publish Your Own Print Book and eBook if you’re thinking about tapping into this massive platform of business growth too.

 

Need some convincing?  This video shows you how to publish a book on Amazon in just 10 MINUTES!!

https://youtu.be/cmQutC_QGyM

4. Subscriptions and Memberships

Predictable, regular and consistent cash flow is critical for sustainable business and should be a priority for all business owners, experts and edupreneurs.

Selling online courses is a great way to earn a good income, however your sales can be unpredictable from month to month when you’re selling them ‘one-off’.

A trend that grew exponentially in 2017 and that really improved my cash flow, was shifting from selling courses individually, to creating a subscription based business model.

This works excellently when you have more than one online or digital offering, and you bundle them all up and offer them up for a monthly fee – which is a no-brainer cheaper option for the subscriber than paying for each item in the ‘package’ individually; and thus is the incentive for them.

A lot of entrepreneurs and business owners baulk at this idea at first “but discounting my stuff devalues it! I’ll lose money!”.

You HAVE to see memberships through a different lens – it’s a different income stream, even though it comprises the same content.

You see, lots of small sales, make a big income; and customers who can see that they are getting insane amounts of value for money become your raving fans, stick around for ages and tell their friends to join too.

Not convinced?

Look how easy it is to earn $10,000 per MONTH in residual income from a simple $47 a month online membership academy…..

10 students = $470 per month

50 students = $2,350 per month

100 students = $4,700 per month

150 students = $7,050 per month

250 students = $11,750 per month

750 students = $35,250 per month

1,000 students = $47,000 per month

(Note: I am not saying your membership offering should be this price – it’s just an example)

Not so scrappy now, is it?!

How many membership subscribers would you need to achieve your personal passive income goal for 2021?

5. Blogging & Guest Blogging

Blogging is still one of my favorite ways to invest my time to create evergreen marketing collateral and I will definitely be continuing to use blogging as a growth strategy in 2020 and beyond.

The best bit is that blogging is a free and easy, lifelong marketing strategy that you get better and better at the more you do it.

I still get business today from posts I published years ago and without fail, I make some kind of sale from every post I put out each week.

Every time you publish a blog post you are putting out a digital, Google-searchable signpost to the world that points back to your website and ensures that your future customers can find you in Google search results for all of time to come.

I always liken blog posts and other ‘content’ such as videos, to the silky rings of a spiders web.  Every time you publish a blog, you add another ring to your web. Your web gets bigger and bigger with every new blog, more people can find you and the wider area of ‘capture’ you have.

Blogs never stop working for you and they simultaneously demonstrate your expertise and gather up leads.

To take it to the next level, you can write blogs for other people’s sites.

Why? Because these sites could have thousands, hundreds of thousands or even MILLIONS of subscribers and YOUR blog article will be put in front of all of them – thus the potential for you to attract lots of brand new fans and followers yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_q_1vdbDzg

How to make the most of blogging

  1. Ensure that your blog titles are the questions your target audience are typing into Google, then your blog will come up in their search results.
  2. Search for the top 20 questions that your audience are typing into Google and answer them all in 20 blog posts
  3. Send it out to other blogs first so that they get ‘first publish’
  4. Schedule your blogs to auto-publish on your own website once a week and to auto-email to your mailing list for maximum impact.

Blogging has by far been consistently one of the best investments of my time for the most passive and sustainable rewards.  I highly suggest you consider it as a long term growth strategy for 2021.

Want to buy my list of email addresses for blog owners and editors?

I have created a list of 303 international blogs and online magazines in the field of business, entrepreneurship and online education and you can buy it here: >> BUY THE GUEST BLOGGING CONTACT LIST

6. Podcasting & Guest Podcasting

Just like blogging and publishing videos, creating and publishing podcasts is another incredible way to ensure that your prospective customers come across you and your content.

Podcasting has now become an everyday part of many people’s lives, so to ‘be there’ is to ‘be found’. 

Although I took 2 years out of my Course Creators podcast,  whilst I served my tenure at a university – after only a short time back and no marketing whatsoever, it still gets new listeners and followers all of the time.  A total of 5,000 downloads in just the few months that I started it back up again in 2020.  Nothing to put on CNN, but great for business.  What would 5,000 new fans and prospects mean for your business?

But don’t take my word for it – here are some podcasting stats from Podcast Insights:

However, the tech and time required to set-up and run a podcast is not everyone’s cup of tea, but never fear, you can still tap into this enormous opportunity another way – by being a guest on other people’s podcasts!

Simply search for podcasts that serve your target audience, and reach out to the podcast owner to ask if they accept guests on their show.

But don’t leave it at that.

Make sure that you outline a very specific way that you would like to contribute to their podcast as a guest, including what your interview topic could be called, what top 3-5 things you can share or teach their listeners and something you have to offer their audience for free as an extra value contribution.

This method has got me many podcast interviews and they continue to collect new leads for me constantly.

If you have a podcast that’s looking for guests, I’d be delighted to come on your show – feel free to email me!

7. Digitizing traditional products and services

 

Going online means going from a local market to a global one, instantly.

I used to limit my face to face workshops to 20 students in a classroom at a time; now I have over 75,000 students enrolled in over 40 of my courses in 168+ countries at any one time (and growing every day) – all because I went ‘digital’.

And when it came to my curriculum design services, serving my clients depended a lot on me driving into their offices and physically working with their teams in-person.  Now, I offer my course creation services online and have corporate, Government and small business clients all over the world – without leaving my office.

You can too.

Instead of having JUST face to face based offerings, can you ‘digitise’ what you do?

  • Turn common consult content into video tutorials
  • Create an online course
  • Put your topo tips into a published eBook or print book
  • Provide your consultations and coaching online and via video call rather than in-person
  • Offer predefined services for a fixed price that can be delivered remotely
  • Deliver your knowledge via paid or free webinars
  • Produce audio files or audio books
  • Create a digital instruction manual / PDF

Going digital with your offerings doesn’t have to replace your face to face offerings – in fact, once you have digital products and services your face to face options can go up in price.

But by adding a digital version of what you currently do in a traditional manner will scale your customer base to unlimited numbers, along with your bank balance.

8. Mini Challenges

The concept of the short, sharp ‘challenge’, with it’s promise of practical implementation and a quick result, has proven to be a highly successful strategy for me in previous years; and has attracted thousands of new leads and customers into my business.

The 5 day and 30 day challenges to achieve X result, have been the most popular for me – but you can chose whatever number of days you prefer to help your audience attain a certain desired outcome.

If your ‘challenge’ is a 5 day challenge, simply:

  1. Film 5 tutorial videos (one for each day)
  2. Develop a practical task for the challenge participants to complete each day
  3. Add downloadable templates
  4. Make it available by email, messenger bot and as a free online course on your website or learning management system (a delivery style to suit different preferences).

What challenge could you create to engage, educate and help your clients and prospects get a much desired result for themselves?

If you need some help, why not join my FREE 5 day challenge which will teach you how to create an educational challenge of your own?!

9. Sell packages instead of individual items

People want more for their money, and you probably want more money for your time.

By shifting from an hourly rate service, or a single product sale, instead move to selling packages that include numerous offerings.

Bundle your online courses together to increase your transaction value, add eBooks to your course packages, add a consult to the bundle, templates, checklists and even discount vouchers for other people’s products and services and more.

There is no limit to how creative you can be about what you add in, but increasing the value of your packages does NOT have to mean adding more of your time to it.

Stop working for an hourly rate and instead work for a value transaction that maximizes your profit and increases your customer satisfaction.

Even better, create 3 different packages that your customers could choose from (think baby bear, mummy bear and daddy bear, or bronze, silver, gold).

One of my clients managed to increase her hourly rate from $250, to over $1,500 per transaction without increasing her input by a single second, by simply packaging a number of her digital offerings together.

List all of your assets, content, products and services and work out what you can offer together in a much higher value bundle instead of selling everything individually.

I go into more detail on how to do this in my book “Edupreneur: How To Monetize Your Expertise and Profitably Educate Your Market”.

Final thoughts

The strategies listed above are only a teeny weeny selection of the many strategies out there  – I could write a whole other book just on the various business growth strategies that have worked well for me, but hopefully these will be enough to get your brain ticking for now.

Remember that there is no single method to attract leads and grow your business, and that different strategies work for different businesses.

The best way to know what works best for you is to simply start experimenting.

 

Challenge yourself to try something new and make your 2021 your best year yet.

If you need some guidance, consider joining my Edupreneur Academy where you can access over 40 online courses and books from me that all aim to help you grow your business whilst making a positive contribution to the world.

If you found this article helpful, please give it a share!

Author: Sarah Cordiner

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Singaporean Startup Ushers In Digital 4.0

Having the capability to forecast whether a first-year student will, at the end of her time in school, graduate at the top of her class or in the lower percentile may seem speculative work, but that is exactly what Azendian Solutions (Azendian) can equip learning institutions to do.

Just turned five years since establishment, Azendian currently focuses on enhancing education and institution performance as well as built environment sustainability by reducing carbon footprint and improving the productivity of operations.

The Company is headquartered in Singapore and has developed its proprietary LiteOn Campus—a solution designed to enhance productivity for resource deployment and facilitating the learning journey of students in educational institutions. Its other solution, LiteOn Estate, is a smart-building solution that brings digital 4.0 capabilities to the built environment which can reduce the carbon footprint produced by real estate properties.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital 4.0 capabilities by businesses and organizations. Azendian has been expanding its capacity to meet this increasing demand.

Azendian Solutions group managing director Bill Lee believes data is a crucial asset for all organizations. Effective use of data and adoption of Artificial Intelligence will bring about new performance previously not attainable and it will also determine their success in an organization’s journey towards industry/digital 4.

The Singapore-based data and analytics company also collaborates with Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore to champion data-driven AI-enabled solutions for digital 4.0 smart building solutions. The partnership with the institution’s School of Engineering, School of Informatics and IT and their estates and facilities management team aims to co-develop AI solutions and offer teaching, training, and case study material to prepare Temasek Polytechnic’s students and industry professionals for the digital 4.0 marketplace.

Azendian’s LiteOn Estate solution taps on WingArc1st’s MotionBoard technology, and together with other industry-leading solutions, it will be featured in Temasek Polytechnic’s integrative built environment center as a showpiece and training center.

The LiteOn Estate solution targets to increase productivity and reduce the carbon footprint, incurring less expenditure with chiller plant and air-side energy optimization.  It also enables fault detection and predictive maintenance as the data-driven and machine learning-powered solution also has a self-learning algorithm to detect minute changes in equipment component behavior and their output. It is a real-time solution that requires minimal human intervention. The automated solution uses its technologies to draw data, optimize, and write back new setpoint strategies on a real-time basis.  The engine automated self-learning model claims to improve performance over time and it auto-detects changes in the environment, for example aging equipment, changing environment condition, and heat load demand. It continuously hunts for the most optimal set points to ensure the expected comfort level for occupants while using lesser kilowatt-hours or energy to do so. The solution can achieve up to 20 per cent energy savings, depending on conditions.

“WingArc1st Inc. develops and distributes products and services that focus on the technology of data utilization primarily in Japan. We are very pleased to collaborate with Singapore-based Azendian, whose strengths lie in data analytics, to further distribute our one-and-only-unique-solution to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. Now that we have a strong business bond with Azendian, with whom we share very similar future visions, we would like to see business growth for both parties from now and forward,” remarked Jun Tanaka, chief executive officer, WingArc1st Inc.

The data empowerment company WingArc1st Inc entered into a business partnership with Azendian on 9 October with the aim to deploy the data analytics solutions in the LiteOn series embedding MotionBoard in the ASEAN region.

Azendian Solutions is based in Singapore and has been expanding across South East Asia. Japan and the other developed markets across Asia are also key growth markets for Azendian and we are very excited to have forged this strategic partnership with WingArc1st Inc to support each other in our ambitions for these regions. WingArc1st solutions’ real-time and high computing performance complements Azendian solutions. It is a win-win for Azendian and WingArc1st,” added Lee.

Azendian’s initial growth phase covers  South East Asia and Japan. In the next growth phase, it is expanding to Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.  Beyond that, they are also looking to expand to the rest of the world. On the product front, they are looking to expand their domain offering from estate and education to other areas too.

The company is completing its Series A+ fundraising,  to support the development and expansion of its product offerings, delivery, and marketing capabilities in South East Asia. Azendian is targeting its Series B fundraising in 18 month’s time when it will be ready to expand its solutions beyond South East Asia and Japan to other regions.

Singaporean Startup Ushers In Digital 4.0 Leveraging Data [Entrepreneur]

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Entrepreneurs

Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs

Everyone knows Steve Jobs ; or, at least, they know of its existence. Or, of the innovations he made in the world of technology.

Steve Paul Jobs, such his full name, perhaps never imagined the global impact generated by being a leading entrepreneur in the computer world: he was the creator of sophisticated and easy-to-use products, the founder of Apple, a world leader in its sector.

His different biographies emphasize the thick line on his character and the way of leading. Everyone recognizes him for having had visionary ideas, which made momentous contributions in the field of personal computers, cell phones and music in digital format.

Undoubtedly, like all great minds, it is loved and hated in equal measure. Bill Gates , his Microsoft competitor, once noted his admiration for the way of telling and creating empathy between the person (Jobs) and the products through their presentations; and many of those who worked alongside him at Apple in those years remember him as a true genius.

As a legacy, in addition to his products, he left 10 practical leadership lessons that emerge from his business experience:

  1. Focus: eliminate distractions. After he was fired from his own company, Steve Jobs returned and one of the first decisions he made was to cut projects and leave only the top four. He said “Let’s do four things and do them spectacularly well.”
  2. Simplify everything. In today’s world, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Optimize resources and value the essential; leave the superfluous.
  3. Take responsibility. If you lead, you are responsible for the entire process; so much so that Apple always created products that, in general, are not directly compatible with other brands; He argued that it was the only way to take full responsibility for the process, flow, operation, and experience of each user.  
  4. If you fall behind, take a leap forward. Mac computers didn’t come with CD recorders, which its Windows competitor Microsoft did. Jobs and team went ahead by creating iTunes, a multi-device storage system that changed the music industry.
  5. Think products first, before profit. The origin of every great idea is the idea itself, and the money will come in addition. Steve said, “Focus on creating a great product, the benefits will follow.”
  6. Focus group just there. At one point, Jobs claimed that he felt a bit enslaved by product review groups. And then his famous phrase emerged: “People don’t know what they want, until you show it to them.” The human mind tends to immediately associate with its previous experience. Without disregarding market research, if you just stick to that you will be doing more of the same, that is, what people know.
  7. Distort reality to tear down the impossible in your life. One time Jobs was with Woz ( Stephen Gary Wozniak ), Apple’s co-founder, who he forced to break with something that seemed impossible: “Do you need 6 months to develop that? You can do it in 4 days! ”. And Woz did it. This means that mental models and self-imposed limits are often the greatest impediments to leaders.
  8. It transmits permanently. Everything communicates and adds value, or not. In the case of Apple products, the experience is transmitted from the moment the consumer yearns to have your product; packaging – design pieces themselves – and even typefaces and graphic design – something Jobs discovered almost by chance when he dropped out of systems studies at Reeds University and took calligraphy classes, which ended up being Another hallmark of their products: thousands of different letters versus a few that Microsoft offered.
  9. Demand excellence as high as possible. Never less than that. While the concept of perfection that Jobs alluded to is not achieved on this physical plane, he made sure that products were not released until everything is checked and they have passed through all possible controls and tests.
  10. Hire the best for your team. He simply admitted that every project he undertook would not have been successful without the team he had in each case. The key to being a leader is knowing how to surround yourself with people who are better than you, with more experience in certain fields, and let them shine.

    And finally, one of his most famous phrases: “Stay hungry, stay foolish. Go for more. Question, Discover, Believe. ”, Excerpt from the famous speech he gave at Stanford University to the students who admired, perplexed, that thin man, weakened by his illness, and who transmitted to them what he did best: the passion for turn your dream into reality.

    10 practical leadership lessons from Steve Jobs [Entreprenuer]