Taiwanese companies flock to ASEAN for growth

In the last 6 years, the New Southbound Policy has played an integral role in enabling Taiwanese enterprises to diversify and capture opportunities in one of the fastest growing regions in the world, ASEAN. During the period of January to October 2021, Taiwan invested US$5.3 billion in the ASEAN region, which amounted to 38.7% of the country's total overseas investments, the highest proportion in 20 years.

In ASEAN, current trends reflect a shift towards customer-driven hyper-personalisation, as well as data-enabled optimisation. Considering the increasing focus on the ASEAN market, growth of Taiwanese enterprises are aligned with these regional trends.

Customer-driven Innovation

ASEAN consumer patterns have shifted in the last few years and enterprises have adapted to meet changing customer needs in the area of health, security and mobility.

Amidst the global pandemic, health has been growing to be a central focus for consumers, with 85% expressing concern over health, according to an Asia-Pacific 2021 survey by Ernst & Young. This has contributed to an increased health and wellness expenditure in Southeast Asia. In the emergence of this trend, ible Technology Inc. has come up with a wearable air purifier to provide purified air surroundings for consumers as they go about their daily lives. This solution adopts ible's unique Breathing Pathway Eco Ion Technology, and this technology will produce over 20 million negative ions (around 100 times more ions than a forest produces) surrounding user's face to remove pollutants from the air, including viruses and other airborne particles.

The recent cyberattack and data breach incidents have put personal data protection and security concerns under the spotlight. This topic has never been more relevant in the age of rapid technology adoption and data-driven organisations, with 83% of ASEAN-based organisations being highlighted as data-driven in the AIBP ASEAN Enterprise Innovation Survey 2021/22. In recognition of this, Maktar offers a smart backup solution with an integrated microSD lock encryption feature that prioritises customer data security.

The establishment of the ASEAN Smart Cities Network has provided a collaborative platform where cities from the ten ASEAN Member States can work towards the common goal of smart and sustainable urban development. With advancing smart city initiatives, smart mobility is gaining traction as consumers look towards convenient and user-centric transportation services. Leveraging on IoT, IBASE designed an embedded computing platform for a smart parking metre that provides efficient parking management services such as occupancy detection and online payment, enabling customer mobility needs to be met.

Accelerating Business Outcomes with Frontier Technologies

According to AIBP ASEAN Enterprise Innovation Survey 2021/22, 62.8% of enterprises in ASEAN perceive business intelligence platforms that help make sense of data as the digital transformation investment that will drive the largest benefits to their organisation. Galaxy Software Services (GSS) is one of the major players in this space. In helping Perfirmtex International Co.,Ltd to improve their customer data management process, GSS built a CRM that enabled efficient lateral communication with key stakeholders like customers and partners, boosting customer satisfaction. This was guided by their Insight to Action Model where predictive analytics assists in deriving customer behaviour insights from data and following that, insights are used to optimise customer engagement efforts.

Digitalisation and automation of operations was found to be the top digital transformation focus of ASEAN organisations from a 2021 AIBP survey. In line with this, various enterprises have created tech-enabled solutions to facilitate process optimisation. An AI Edge Server by AAEON supported the smart manufacturing process of a machine manufacturer in the semiconductor industry. Accounting for end user needs, AAEON designed products that were compact and dissipated heat easily.