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FirstCom Hosts Digital Essence Webinar with co-hosts Google and IMDA

October 29, 2020

FirstCom Hosts Digital Essence Webinar with co-hosts Google and IMDA

Last Thursday (29 October 2020) FirstCom Solutions hosted our very first Digital Essence Webinar in collaboration with Google and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).

The webinar introduced budding entrepreneurs and small business owners to the digital landscape for the new normal post-covid 19. Topics covered were: digitisation trends in Singapore and South-east Asia, covid-19 and its effect on the future of retail and e-commerce, as well as support in the form of grants and subsidies for local companies looking to digitise.

To give our audience more detailed insights into the current digitisation trends, we invited speakers Germana, Retail Industry Manager at Google Singapore and Jiaen, Deputy Director at IMDA to share their expertise alongside our Director, Jim.

If you missed the webinar, don’t worry — you can catch the webinar video uploaded below or read our recap here.

The Digital Essence webinar kicked off with our first speaker, Germana, who shared with us Google’s findings on how COVID-19 has affected consumer trends, and what we can expect these trends to look like in the future. Thanks to her insights, we know that e-commerce adoption across SEA has greatly accelerated, with higher penetration into retail sales and shifts to online even with traditional brick and mortar verticals like groceries. Other interesting insights include consumers continuing to favour online shopping despite lesser restrictions in outdoor activities during Circuit Breaker Phase 2 — with 63% of consumers preferring to consolidate their shopping trips and preferring to visit in-store only for items like apparel and home furnishings.

Our second speaker, Jiaen, gave webinar attendees an overview of the Digital Resilience Bonus (DRB) and how local businesses can take advantage of this support scheme provided by IMDA. Jiaen covered the DRB categories in great detail: Business Processes, Digital Presence, Data Mining and Analytics and provided examples of IMDA’s qualified digital solutions in each category. Business owners would do well to listen closely to what she has to say to maximise your chances of receiving up to $10,000 in government grants!

Last but not least, our director Jim shared the story of Sin Chwee Minimart, also known as Tankfully Fresh, one of FirstCom’s most successful clients, as a case study for local businesses looking to digitise. Jim spoke at length about their growing pains, and how SMEs must realise that digitisation is a gradual journey that requires months of tweaking to find success, not an overnight transformation. Finally, he closed his section by covering the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG), which allows businesses to take up digital solutions like e-commerce development at subsidised costs.

A fruitful Q&A session was held to round off the webinar. Attendees got the opportunity to clarify their doubts and pose questions to our industry experts. We were heartened to see plenty of questions regarding eligibility for both DRB and PSG, indicating great interest amongst our attendees to take action.

A lucky winner amongst our webinar attendees was also chosen to receive a free Start Digital Package! Valued at $5,800, the package consists of a 2-month social media marketing campaign, developed and run by FirstCom’s digital marketing team.

FirstCom Solutions would like to extend our thanks once again to our guest speakers and attendees of the first Digital Essence webinar. Do follow our Facebook Page to be informed about future webinars before they come up!