November 27, 2018 — During a recent keynote session conducted by HREasily and Xero that took place at the Great Room in Singapore last November 22, a selected group of fantastic panelist from Asia were able to discuss the struggles that business owners are experiencing when it comes to handling manual processes and how innovation and automation could play a role in ending these challenges.
Philippine tax software JuanTax with other tech founders at HReasily’s event in Singapore, Nov. 22, 2018.
Dubbed as “Supercharge your Business by Taking it into the Cloud”, the event also served as a gathering of minds from the world of technology and business as companies came together to talk about the current state of the digital ecosystem in Singapore, as well as how startups are creating B2B applications in order to help companies manage key functions when it comes to business operations.
Below are some of the highlights from the event:
1. A Stellar Line of Panelists
As expected, the event does not disappoint as speakers and moderators were able to deliver great insights on the topics presented at the session:
- Sharon Lee – COO & Co-Founder of HReasily
- Chris Fuggle – Partner, Mazars in Singapore, Singapore
- Anthony Staltari – Head of Partner, Asia of Xero
- Vikram Kshettry– Visa Head for B2B Partnerships, Asia Pacific
- Olivia Leong – Founder, Verra Asia
- Brian Teng – CEO, Co-Founder, InvoiceInterchange
- Marvin Galang – Founder of JuanTax
Luis Yeo, Partnerships Manager of HREasily, played as a moderator for the event.
2. Cash is King
When asked about the reason of starting a business, Brian Teng, co-founder and CEO of renowned online invoice solution InvoiceInterchange, stated that the SME’s struggles when it comes to collecting payments, managing cash flow and the difficulty of getting credits from banks was a huge starting point for the company. SME’s are crying out for solutions on how technology could help them with these kinds of troubles.
The company saw both sides of this equation. Thus, InvoiceInterchange was born.
3. Big Things Come from Small Beginnings
For Marvin Galang, Founder of JuanTax, kickstarting the journey towards seamless tax compliance wasn’t all easy at first, as it became a rude awakening for them. Especially that the goal of this solution is to suit the needs of a country with a complex tax system.
What they did is to study everything: from the way sold/purchased items are being allocated as either goods or services, to how a simple transaction could go into 9 different tax forms — all the concepts that a tax professional could think of.
Marvin also recalled how the company started to engage their customers. From blogs, chat support and training sessions — people started reaching out and asking questions about tax compliance. Much has been said, it all started out with analyzing a single tax form and the rest was history.
JuanTax is a Philippine-based cloud tax software which helps businesses in achieving compliance with the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) when it comes to transactional taxes including VAT, Percentage Tax, and Expanded Withholding Tax.
4. People + Tech : No Problem!
While many companies would focus more on technology and advancements, companies like Verra Asia that centers around marketing and employee management would still consider people as their top resource.
For Olivia Leong, Founder of Verra Asia, if businesses wants to reach its full potential, having a harmonious relationship between human and mechanical intervention would make the cut on its list of important ingredients for success.
She also mentioned that what she loved about technology aside from making day-to-day business operations a lot more easier (e.g. accounting, payroll, CRM, etc.), is that it enabled her company to work freely anytime, anywhere — in fact, 50% of their daily operations often revolves around the use of mobile device.
5. Go Big or Go Home
Furthermore, Olivia had expressed her strong approval of the efforts made by today’s cloud vendors for doing a good job on understanding its customers and claimed that as technology continues to evolve, then so as businesses — SMEs, with the help of technology should not stay small forever, just as the popular slogan goes, it’s time to “Go Big, or Go Home.”
Philippine tax software JuanTax with key partners in Asia
Final Thoughts
What we’re facing right now is just a start of a bigger digital revolution.
Sooner or later, this disruption in status quo would further make its presence known, as more and more cloud solutions exists in the market — each with its designated role to play in the lives of businesses ahead.
But one thing’s for sure, although there are a lot of path to choose from, all roads to the cloud leads to only one direction, and that is success.
