Now available at SingTel

It has been an interesting week. Transitioning from IDA to SingTel wasn’t as difficult as I expected, maybe I’m just getting better at such transitions. Yesterday, as I was walking back to Suntec for dinner, I finally found that sentimental comfort that location wise it’s really just a stone’s throw away. Focusing on the present moment became a priority, and as I breath a huge sigh of relief, my so-called “quarter-life crisis” has, calmly yet emphatically, just passed.

Scope and knowledge wise, a big learning ground I need to cover now is how this whole mobile business works, having been focusing purely on fixed broadband applications for the past 2 years. But more importantly, I’m finally free to move in the direction which I see meaningful in an organisation that is increasingly involved with pretty much everything I care about, except of course it will probably take me a while to get a good grasp of the business in its entirety.

Being a person who’s all about strategy and optimization, I’m constantly bothered by the sub-par way of running businesses, almost like a mosquito bite kind of itch. However, things takes time to change and transform, what’s important is the recognition from what I call the “number clocking” people to give that space for experimentation, nurturing, and most importantly, relentless encouragement, in a cut throat and somewhat irrational marketplace.

What exactly I do now is pretty well articulated on www.singtel.com/innovation. I mean, that’s if you can appreciate well polished PR messages. Under the hood it’s a huge octopus job again, sourcing and filtering and picking the cream of the crop from all possible partners with SingTel, particular ISVs who make Business Applications as SiX is really part of Business Group, but could very well spill over to Consumer as well, since many of the latest and greatest applications is being driven by the consumer space. SaaS is great, SaaS on mybusiness.singtel.com is even better, SaaS on mybusiness.singtel.com serving a regional clientèle is best (something like that).

Which brings me to one aspect of the job that I’m drawn to: to bring SingTel’s partners to the region. Looks daunting at the moment but I’m sure it can be done. Big picture view is that most apps today are hosted in US, while huge players like Google or AWS spread their eggs around, most only rely on Akamai content caches. But there are likely regional players who rather stay at home ground (if not home region) and focus on providing the best to their market. SingTel as I see it definitely has such ambitions, but we need to get better at selecting the right bets on partners. Hope to see how these kind of partner ISVs look like soon.

So in a nutshell, what’s crucial now is to vastly increase the funnel of which such winning relationships can be formed. I’ll probably write another piece on the various types of funnels I’ve seen thus far, but what I could summarize is that ideas are a dime a dozen, but ideas attached to a committed individual or company who has that determination to see it bear fruit. Speak to any VC and you’ll get the same sentiment.

Another under-sold aspect is also the value that a company like SingTel, who’s frequently viewed as “just a telco / service provider”, can bring to the table. On paper, we say our SiX office is able to help you incubate, gain faster access to market and regionalise, which is all true, but another (possible more crude) way of phrasing this is that you are going to face your demand with a big boy with ready customers and a huge sales / marketing machinery behind you and your product. The world is changing rapidly and you would be surprised who’s your new friend, who’s your new foe, who can create new value for you and your customers, who can build stronger customer relationships, etc.

All that said, I’m ready for new ideas for ideas. Yes “Meet Ong Jiin Joo October 09” has ended, but I’m still more than happy to catch up. Please contact me in whatever way you prefer, especially if you’re looking to bring your solution to the region and the world, and I’ll strive to create that space and shoulder that you need to maneuver.