• Techsun’s new customer engagement SaaS for retail SMEs is an expansion of its flagship product, Social Hub, and shares the same technology core. 

• Social Hub, an integrated CRM and CDP solution for omnichannel retailers, was forged in the crucible of China’s hyper-competitive retail industry and counts brands such as McDonalds and Haagen-Dazs as its customers. 

• Social Hub is priced less than 20% of what big firms are charging. With this, Techsun is democratising access to technology used by big brands in order to uplift the retail landscape in SEA. 

Martech brand Techsun, has launched in Southeast Asia with their new headquarters in Singapore. In conjunction with their regional expansion, Techsun has also rolled out a new product. Built for SMEs, this is a product expansion of Techsun’s flagship product, Social Hub, a cloud-native customer understanding and engagement SaaS for omnichannel retailers and brands.

Emerging as a winner in China’s hyper-competitive retail technology industry, Social Hub, is an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Data Platform (CDP) solution, built to help multi-channel retailers grow. The product enables brands to have a 360 degree understanding of their customers by managing and analysing relevant customer data across multiple online to offline (O2O) touchpoints such as transactions in-store and in-app, official and authorised reseller websites, social media channels as well as payment platforms. These data insights go on to inform marketing and operation strategies.

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Furthermore, Social Hub helps retailers deepen brand loyalty via its omnichannel personalised customer messaging, automated precision marketing, and management of promotion initiatives and loyalty programmes such as membership points and discount coupons.

The expansion to Southeast Asia marks their first regional office outside of China and is a stepping stone to the greater APAC region.

Ivan Zhou, APAC General Manager of Techsun, said, “We see great potential for Techsun in Southeast Asia, due to its growing regional economy and a strong business community. With Social Hub, we aim to be the solution of choice for both the global brands and the large SME market in the region. We want to utilise the experience we gained working with numerous global brands in China and the APAC region and help businesses in Singapore as well as the rest of Southeast Asia. We are proud to be able to price our SaaS at less than 20% of what big companies such as Salesforce are charging and we are confident that this will go a long way in uplifting the retail landscape in Asia.”

Social Hub is used by more than 50 international brands across Asia Pacific countries and Techsun proudly counts world-class brands such as McDonalds, Adidas, Haagen-Dazs, Swatch, and Olay as its customers.

“We chose Techsun as our CRM service provider in APAC for three reasons: They have a rich service-providing experience in the new retail era in this region for different global brands, they have leading-edge technical architecture, with a product that helps businesses reach a wider audience while adhering to GDPR compliance,” shares Dennis Tang, APAC Chief Data Officer, of VF Group, an NYSE-listed apparel, and footwear company which houses brands such as Vans and The North Face.

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Democratising access to cutting-edge technologies for SMEs

It goes without saying that the internet economy has been a level for resilience and opened up new opportunities for enterprises and small businesses to digitally adapt to a post-COVID economy. Over the past year, the value of e-commerce in SEA has increased by 63%, with over a third of 2020’s online commerce generated by new shoppers. According to iPrice Group’s Map of E-commerce year-end report, although non-essential categories such as fashion, electronics, sports and outdoors websites saw a slight decrease in web traffic, the average basket size for these categories increased. Overall, SEA consumers spent an overall average of USD32 per order in 2020 which was 19% higher than 2019. In particular, Singapore and Malaysia saw the highest average basket size of USD61 and USD41 respectively in 2020.

Yet, findings from a study by Oxford Economics, revealed that Southeast Asian firms know what it takes to transform digitally, but they are not as adaptable as they would like to be. The survey found that customer experience has been a strategic imperative for survival and growth. In particular, SMEs cited greater difficulties in adapting to a rapidly changing marketplace, keeping up with customer needs, retaining customers and driving repeat business as the top barriers to meeting strategic priorities. 50% of those surveyed felt they had trouble competing with larger firms while 43% and 38% felt they lacked the technology for analytics and adequate data respectively.

“SMEs may not be as prolific as MNCs but they are important engines of growth in Southeast Asia. Technology is a key competitive advantage for brands, especially in the new retail era, and we want to democratise access to the same cutting-edge solutions that big brands have been using for SMEs so that they can equalise the playing field. We recognise that SMEs are more price-sensitive but they are nimbler than MNCs in pursuing transformational change. Social Hub for SMEs was created to help address any digital transformation friction experienced by retail SMEs affordably,” shares Ivan. “It still shares the same tech core as Social Hub, which has been refined in the fires of China’s highly competitive retail landscape. Hence, with our expansion to Southeast Asia, we want to serve not just big retailers here but also the multitude of retail SMEs so that the retail industry can capture tailwinds and experience business growth.”

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