The One Who Transformed Yellow Pages

In the first episode of Lost In Transformation, MING Labs’ COO Sebastian Mueller talks to Hayk Hakobyan, a business expert and advisor on topics related to innovation, strategy, AI and blockchain. Hayk held senior roles of digital transformation and business turnaround, having worked for and with SMEs and MNCs across Europe, Africa and Asia. Currently, Hayk is a partner at Vision Capital and Expert-in-Residence at SOSV, the biggest VC accelerator in the world, and APAC partner at Prysm Group. In this episode, learn how he implements Digital Transformation processes in companies and his journey at Yellow Pages, and learn more about cultural challenges and key trends in the field of technology.

Transcript

Christine (00:05)

Welcome to Lost In Transformation. This is MING Labs, podcasting from Singapore, an international innovation center, business hub, and startup supporter. Learn from digital thought leaders and designers about the innovation and transformation of businesses in an ever evolving digital world.

Christine (00:26)

Coming up is your host Sebastian Mueller, COO of MING Labs, with our guests for today, Hayk Hakobyan. He is a business expert and advisor in areas of innovation strategy AI and blockchain. He is a regular speaker who presented at TEDx, Chaos Asia, and Blockchain Economic Forum. Hayk held senior roles in digital transformation around the world, having worked with SMEs and MNCs across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Currently, he is the business development manager at Nexmo, a partner at Vision Capital, an Expert-in-Residence at SOSV, and an APEC partner at Prysm Group. In this episode, learn about implementing digital transformation processes in companies, cultural challenges, and key trends in the field of technology. We hope you enjoy the conversation and look forward to your feedback.

Sebastian (01:20)

So Hayk. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks for joining us today.

Hayk (01:25)

Thank you Sebastian for your time and thanks for having me. This could be a very exciting conversation.

Sebastian (01:31)

Yeah, let's see where it goes. I mean, you've been doing a lot of different things, in your life so far, switching between different fields. Maybe you first start by telling us a little bit. What have you actually been doing the last few years? Where did this all start for you? Why did you end up in Singapore?

Hayk (01:51)

Okay. Yeah, so, well, I think the underlying logic of everything I've done is because I like to either do something that has an impact on a business on a professional level as well as on a personal. So, I think maybe the underlying rationale or logic is that I like to either do something that impacts or I like to help someone to do something that impacts people and businesses. So that's the common denominator of everything I've done. So why I ended up in Singapore, I think my story is that I started in Europe. I studied physics and I studied business in Europe and then also was about to finish my studies. I thought, well, Africa is the kind of place that I would like to go to. Initially, I thought to go to Egypt because I wanted to learn Arabic, and then once I was there, I thought it was the land of opportunities because there are so many things you can do.

Hayk (02:42)

In Egypt as well as in most of Africa you can never even think of doing in any more developed places and I like to go to places where there are opportunities, not that much, the confer, the living standards, but more the opportunities. So I went there. I didn't learn Arabic the first two months that I was supposed to learn, but likely enough, I ended up staying there for four years. I mean, imagine, I actually went to Egypt for two months only as a language school. I ended up staying four and a half years. I still learned Arabic except I didn't envision it, I'm going to learn it by working and by, in a way, a forced way of learning the language. So then when the revolution happened in 2011 I moved to Mozambique. Why Mozambique? Because well, I mean it's very rational now. You'll see. So I like to climb, I climbed Mont Blanc and few other bigger peaks.

Hayk (03:31)

And so in Africa, there's Kilimanjaro, which is the biggest. And while it just happens to be in Tanzania, so I didn't want to go to Tanzania because I thought, well Tanzania, they speak Swahili, which is 60% Arabic. There is a bit of German, a bit of Portuguese, a bit of local. So I said, I speak or could speak potentially all except Portuguese. And then I looked at the neighbors. So I wanted to go to a neighboring country. This is really my thought process, where can I go, where I can travel to Tanzania to climb a mountain. So I thought of every other neighboring country. They either speak English or French, which I already speak. I said, ah, Mozambique, they don't, they speak Portuguese. I don't speak that, but similar to French. So I found a job there, a consulting job, and then that's how I ended up in Mozambique.

Sebastian (04:18)

The whole reason being you wanted to climb Kilimanjaro.

Hayk (04:19)

And yeah, the best part is I didn't realize that the capital of Mozambique, Maputo, is at the very south of Mozambique. So to give you an idea at the very source of Mozambique's. So, Tanzania is the northern neighbor. If you're traveling by airplane from Maputo to let's say Dar es Salaam, the former capital of Tanzania, that's around seven hours. Of which five hours is over Mozambique. So I was potentially at the most, like, the furthest point from Tanzania, but still in Mozambique that I could be, and I could never take a train or bus, which is what I initially thought. I did, however, climb Kilimanjaro eventually. So it's a bit, yeah, it's, it went in a very roundabout way. But anyway, I eventually ended up climbing there. So again, I worked in Egypt in companies that initially at the biggest professional service companies. So they were providing consulting and advisory services to multinationals.

Hayk (05:11)

So helping some other companies. That's my rational [...]. Then in Mozambique, eventually I also ended up working for the biggest opposition media. And so helping to empower and impact the lives of people. My sort of travels is working. Africa came to a temporary, suspension when South Africa introduced transit visa systems. So I was traveling from Dubai back to Mozambique where I still had a job, had a girlfriend, all my luggage and all my life is there and I couldn't go because suddenly in Johannesburg they wanted me to have a transit visa, which I didn't. So they shipped me to Tanzania again and then I figured out I need a bit more than just a visa on arrival to go back to Mozambique. So I thought, well, why I don't go back to my home base in Africa, which is Egypt. And from there I eventually got connected to, I had a friend who was working in Singapore for 20 years, a successful entrepreneur.

Hayk (06:06)

He married an Egyptian lady, moved to Egypt. So then he says, well, why don't you go that side of the world? I mean, I'm making it sound a bit like a bit of a fairy tale, but this is how it went. So he connected me to some people in Singapore. I came for 10 days. In 10 days I met five, six people. And then six months down the road when I was back in Egypt, I thought, well, revolution isn't getting any better in terms of economy. The economy was bad. I wasn't getting a visa. I think that helped as well. I've been already four and a half years in Egypt, so I figure after 15 Egyptian visas, maybe I should leave, because they won't give me any more visa and I can't get a job, because I'm a foreigner and I can do my own thing because um, well the situation is not really that good in terms of like starting something at that time.

Hayk (06:54)

So yeah. Then, after five, six people I met, I reached out, said anyone needs a senior Bizdev or something. One of them said, sure, come over for an interview, pay me a ticket I'll come. And I said, okay, let's do a Skype interview. I did a Skype interview, I passed. They did my work pass, all that. Here I am. That's the long short story of how I came to Singapore.

Sebastian (07:17)

How long have you been here now?

Hayk (07:18)

Almost five years. So what I've done is the same thing, right. So I ended up working for companies that provide specific types of services for bigger companies. So I always ended up either in a very big company that gives something to the big company and another big company or a smaller company that does something for a much bigger company. It's always that. And then through that, the company goes all the way to retail.

Hayk (07:40)

Right. So last few years, well I've done a few things. I haven't started anything yet in Singapore, but I've worked now two-plus years in Nexmo. It's the biggest in Asia in terms of telco capabilities and it's number two in the world. Before that I was, and I think that's where a lot of your questions are going to come through. Before that, I was basically part of Yellow Pages. The story there is actually interesting. Maybe I'll just go to segue to that. So I was working for a big Chinese company in Singapore. I was leaving that company. And by complete coincidence or serendipity, one of my friends met me and I told her that I'm going to leave this company. And she said, well, do you like challenging opportunities? I said, challenging opportunity. My Chinese company was very challenging. I mean my boss did not speak English, I had to pick up some Chinese. He's still easily is a very highly connected guy in China. His dad was a close friend of Mao Zedong. So he had connections, province heads, Rothschild Bank, that kind of connections that not even Google has, or maybe they do, I don't know. So I think that it can't get any more challenging than this job.

Hayk (08:59)

So she said, no, but you should talk to my dad. I said, who is your dad? She said, my dad, is the Yellow Pages CEO. I said, oh, okay, sure. Then let's have a meet with your daddy. So we met, I was told that the yellow pages have been for few years, five, six years, trying to turn around, become more relevant and that they were unable to and they were looking for someone who can. So I said, well, I've never done a digital turnaround or business turnaround, especially in a public company. So yeah. And after some conversations, et cetera, the CEO was okay to let me meet the Board. And that was my second interview. So he said, you should present your ideas to the Board, whatever we talked about here in this interview, you presented to the Board. If they like what you said, then you can take this.

Hayk (09:50)

And that's what I did. So I put everything in a PowerPoint format and I pitched it to their Board. Not all of them were there, but he spent only like few days conveying basically on very short notice. And yeah, the rest is basically, I took charge of the companies, well, pretty much all operations except the core printing. I was given a [...] to do anything I want and I did. I started a new digital business unit, stuffed it with some people from the other departments, recruited, hold all the product lines.

Sebastian (10:23)

So how was the core business at the time when you came in? Was it the printed catalog that we all imagine when we hear Yellow Pages?

Hayk (10:29)

So this is what Yellow Pages is or was known for except the point is I don't think they would be able to answer what's the core, they could answer what's the core in terms of the chunk of revenue coming from this and that. But if you ask me, so this is actually a very interesting point because when I went there there were more than 30 print publications and more than 40 digital products that no one has ever heard of. So when I heard this, I said, so you have all this, okay, can we have a breakdown of the product by profit and then by revenue, let's see what it generates. Surprise, surprise. They didn't have a product breakdown by profit. They could tell by revenue, like on overall. But basically, they had really little idea, which product was making a profit. So they had all this revenue and this was the first year in the history of Yellow Pages when they were in the red.

Hayk (11:20)

So they were losing money. So this was even more than ever relevant for them to figure their act together or get their act together.

Sebastian (11:27)

So there was no cost attribution to this.

Hayk (11:29)

No. So, the CFO interestingly was from, his former PWC, I don't know what his title was, I don't remember, but he wasn't junior, Mid to senior level. So when I had an initial chat with him about this, he told me an argument. I still remember because it's pretty shocking at the time, two years, something like that. He said, well, you know, costs are distributed. I said, if you produce a chair, it's going to be a distributed cost. But I think there is a way of doing this. Can I help you do the digital product? I'll have a P&L for each of your digital products.

Hayk (12:05)

So we didn't have that. So my first two weeks were basically, I slashed at I think two or three products with a big contract with a Canadian software company that per supposed to [...] label and provide two SMEs in Singapore. They spent one year on one. The board of directors was involved. I think my second meeting, I was one week in a company, my second meeting into that project, I slashed it. I said, let's do a quick survey. Let's ask, not even a statistically significant sample, but let's ask 50, 60 SMEs. Would they want something like this? It's a simple test. It's not, we don't have time for a big significant test, but let's just ask some few thousand. So they did. One week after, where the results are, of I think 52 or so they asked only two wanted this product. Everyone else wanted to delegate this to the Yellow Pages, which is what I had.

Hayk (12:55)

I'm like, no, I don't think they care. They want to take care of it, it was an advertising platform, so imagine an SME. They have to have a fully flash dashboard and all their Google and Facebook. I mean, how many SMEs do you know, that is going to have to have firstly this kind of talent or resource or like time or even financials. They just want to pay someone to do it for them. Right. Which is what I assumed and that was right, but they didn't have proof. They didn't have proof.

Sebastian (13:19)

Nobody before ever bothered to ask the customer.

Hayk (13:21)

No, no one. The Head of Product at the time was this guy who was very technical and I thought, well, his argument was this is great Tech in Yellow Pages Canada. I said Yellow Pages Canada is five years ahead of yellow pages anywhere. Because there they have a mature market.

Hayk (13:36)

It's a mature company. Their SMEs are at the level where they can take them to, but we don't. So I, you can imagine I immediately made a lot of friends when I did this. Another thing is, my title was Head of Business Development. There is a story behind it. So when I first came, my first day, the CEO introduced me to the VPS. He said, so we can't call you head of the business transformation because no one's going to work with you. Let's call you something more friendly. What about business development? Everyone likes business development. I said, I okay, but they don't think they're still gonna work with me either way, but okay, let's, let's give me a better chance or better term. If you like. So yeah, I would go and I would present myself head of business development initially all the C-levels or VPs were like, yeah. Yeah. And then five minutes in the conversation, so you can see they get defensive because I'm questioning their product, their budget, etc, etc. But anyway, so yeah, that's where I was. I didn't have any blueprint. I mean, business turnaround, it's not exactly like you can get it at an MBA course. So I took, a book, which by pure serendipity or coincidence I was reading, called Brick by Brick. So Brick by Brick is a turnaround story of Lego. And it turned out there was more than one similarity between Yellow Pages in Singapore and Lego, which is in Denmark. For example, that breakdown of products by profit was exactly one of the things that they didn't have at the time when they turn around and I came to help them. And there are a lot of other similarities. So that became a sort of my blueprint.

Hayk (15:08)

I literally took literally pages and pages and started following and implementing the local version of what the message was or what the idea was and that's how it happened. Lego took around three years to go from, also for Lego it was the first year in 2004 when they were losing money. So ironically again, I think this could be interesting for you is that in 1998 Lego was about to go, not go down, but they started not growing as fast as they can and they brought in this business turnaround expert tool to speak, so-called. He introduced a lot of new products. The revenues started growing, not even exponentially. More like this. So a bit more than linearly, but I'd be less than linearly. But it was growing. But the problem was that by 2004, so in six years they increased revenue. But it turns out that in six years that was the first year in 2000 for the day their profit went down and went like zero in 2004.

Hayk (16:06)

So despite increasing revenue, profit was going down, which was counterintuitive. Problem was that turnaround expert that they had. He had no idea how to do this kind of breakdown either. And when they brought in the new CFO, that's the CFO that says, no, this is not acceptable. They fired the transformation expert and they promoted more towards a former head of strategy to be the co-CEO or [...] CEO. And he's still the CEO of [inaudible], [...] if I pronounce his name. So he was at the time 36, former McKinsey, the guy spent one year in a kindergarten, he has a Ph.D. in something and he spent one year in a kindergarten, observing and dealing with kids. So it's this kind of guy. It's a very interesting guy.

Sebastian (16:47)

Sounds like a relevant background for that.

Hayk (16:48)

Yeah, that sounds very relevant to me, except for the kindergarten part.

Hayk (16:53)

So he came and it's the same thing. He was very new. Two years in Lego. I was completely new. He had to deal with everyone who has been in Lego for 30 to 40 years. Same for me. I came under like my grandma and my mom's age of people. There was one lady that has been 43 years Yellow Pages. She was in the print department and she was probably, I think 70 ish already. But yeah, there are people like this. Everyone was my parents' age. Some people were close to my grandparent's age, to C-levels. All were Singaporean-Chinese, you probably know. No, no, there are no buds. So there is a bit of a special older generation. There is still a bit of racism. No racism, but they don't feel comfortable. Nice, tall, white guy. Never mind where I'm from. So anyway, I had to deal with a lot of prejudice.

Hayk (17:37

Who is this kid who is telling us what to do? He does not understand anything about our business. He doesn't know that this doesn't work. I mean I had to deal with small things like you can change the title of your employee all the way to the product line that you are talking about. The product that you're talking about is not impossible to introduce or you can't have your employees in the Philippines, because it's yellow pages in Singapore. So I had to basically break a lot of their stereotypes that didn't make me a lot of friends. But the digital business unit that we created, we ran it like Google basically. So I also read the book called Work Rules by Laszlo Bock, who was the VP of people's operations at Google. So he has a book, whether, in reality, Google has a lot of that in reality, especially in this region or not, that's beyond the point cause I don't think they do.

Hayk (18:24)

But the book has a lot of very interesting insights because Laszlo Bock is not a typical HR. So I took that in my recruitment and team growing sort of as a blueprint. And then I took brick by brick as an overall strategic sort of business turnaround, a blueprint. And I just went with these two. And our unit grew very fast. So in nine months, we went from... So Yellow Pages overall went from zero to, we started growing in revenue again. So we had to restructure sales, we had to train down were to bring in partners. I mean we did a lot of things that were for me, I presented it, I've never, I only read it in the book, but we introduced it. There were a lot of good results. We outsourced even part of our team to the Philippines, where the project manager and few other people working in the Philippines, which was unheard of.

Hayk (19:14)

So we did pretty well. And, along the way, we failed to get acquired two times. Once by a big New Zealand digital agency. And the second time it was which Singaporeans would know as My Republic. My republic wanted to acquire us. The acquisition talks went for two, three months, because of that. So it was me, the CFO, the CEO, and the other VP, four of us, mostly involved. So I got to meet all of the My Republic, all the c-levels, very interesting conversations we had with them. The reason why it didn't happen is that they wanted to only eventually acquire the digital business unit which I was heading. Yellow Pages at the time had interests and investments in Wendy's, which is this regional hotdog and ice cream chain. Do you know Wendy's?

Sebastian (20:01)

Yeah, of course.

Hayk (20:02)

Yeah. So it was a master franchiser. Also had a few more, like Pakuranga Mall in Oakland in New Zealand.

Hayk (20:09)

So, basically a lot of real estate and food investments in the region. And there's a list of companies on SGX. So My Republic was reluctant to take on all these other assets that are sort of secondary or non-essential. And the deal broke down because we can't just give away the Digital Business Unit. So yeah. And then one year, few miles down the road, I had a talk with the CEO. I mean, again, I'm making it short, but you can ask all the follow-up questions. So this was already the next quarter after we started again growing in terms of sales, we were no longer losing money, so he said, I need to see a hockey stick growth, which is what everyone wants. I said, look, Stanley, you pick one end of the stick, you pick the other. You cannot expect me to do a business turnaround in one year.

Hayk (20:58)

Even Lego, which is my blueprint, didn't do it in one year. It's usually a few years. And it takes a lot of restructuring, a lot of things I did in nine months. Bring back the revenue. I need another six months for the team to actually show you a more significant kind of growth that you would like to see. So all I need is time. He said we don't have time. It's a public company, etc., shareholder pressure, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah. I said, well if we don't have time then I'm going to leave. Again, just stay here, sit back and see, you do whatever you want. And that's what happened. I just told him that I'll leave if he doesn't give me the time. And I did. What happened after my leaving was that he merged the digital business unit, which was a bit, I guess by then the most lucrative part of this company into another person's company.

Hayk (21:48)

So this person's name is Fabian Lim and the company was called page advisor. It's this mobile app where you can find some SME services, but something that I wouldn't approve of, because their company's name was brought in early on when I was like few months in Yellow Pages and we thought we did due diligence, we didn't think it's gonna work out. So now after I left, I only ironically the guy, because Stanley probably clicked with the founder who has a similar mentality. Stanley's the CEO of Yellow Pages. And that's how it happened. Unfortunately as a learned recently and sort of had again a hunch about that relationship didn't work out and Fabian Lim was pretty much dismissed. So now they are back to, so to speak, square one, they have a new CEO, one of the directors is the chairman and Yellow Pages, the part, the digital business unit now spawn out completely of the main Yellow Pages which is now renamed into Yellow Pages properties. And that's the one that's still listed on SGX. So now that chairman is running the show with a new CEO and now they're trying to basically resume where they left when before Fabian Lim came in. But that's sort of the story now.

Sebastian (23:03)

It's a very interesting story and a lot to unpack there. So maybe also tell us a little bit about what kind of manpower did you actually have when you came in and then over time, how did you grow that?

Hayk (23:17)

So we didn't really have much of let's say, groups. So because at the time when I came, Yellow Pages didn't have different business units. There were a few guys who were working on websites for SMEs, a few that are doing Google advertising and that's what we had.

Sebastian (23:35)

So that's the digital talent.

Hayk (23:38)

That's the digital talent. So few guys, there is no system or project management system or anything. It was first in, first out, or any, like it, was very random. So we came in, I came in, I introduced, I created a subunit called product, recruited someone from outside to be in a product, brought in a few technical guys to be developers or developer coordinators in the product. Created a subunit called the web, again stuffed it, and sort of structured and systematized that. So we had web, advertising, and product. The product was our own product. Advertising was the Google and Facebook eventually that we introduced. And the web was the websites that we were creating for the SMEs.

Hayk (24:17)

So there are three units. So the product was in charge of the internet yellow pages and basically any internal Yellow Pages products. So I mean a funny story was, that one of the girls who was there was doing basically Google advertising for SMEs. So her title was an assistant product manager. So when I talked to her because I have to talk to my existing assets or resources, I said, so what product are you managing? She said I'm just doing Google advertising. I said, then you are a digital marketing executive or manager at best. What's the assistant park on? I don't know? So I went to HR. I said I need to change your title. It's the wrong title. She said, you cannot change it, because you have to have the CEO's approval. I said I'm not gonna have the CEO.

Hayk (25:01)

I'm the last stop in terms of decision making and you have to change it, and then she said, well, it's unionized, so we have to get this paper, that paper, that paper. I said, let's just have an internal paper, pass it to everyone. We'll call it digital marketing. I don't want to get involved with the union here. So anyway, I had a lot of this kind of smaller and bigger battles, that I had to fight, but we structured three groups. There are product, web, and advertising. Introduced systems and processes for each of them, KPIs for each of them. Brought the whole organization into Google. This was a breakthrough. It would seem Google is a given. No, they were using Microsoft, because Microsoft is a partner and when I brought in Google, the IT head told me, but what about Google's security? We have to be really thorough about it.

Hayk (25:51)

I said, what about Microsoft's? Because I used to be an IT specialist at the time. Internet Explorer or any of the web servers of Microsoft are known to be like Swiss cheese. There's a lot of holes. It's like no if you don't know even anything about anything, but no, a bit about security. You know Microsoft is not at all secure. I don't know now, but I don't think it's that much more secure than before. So when she said this, I smiled, I said, are we comparing Microsoft? Is that like a benchmark of security? Because I will take this as a joke. Anyway, she said but the company policies, public company. I said with all due respect, it's my purview here and we're going to go with Google. So we went with Google, she tells me, I mean she had a dotted line reporting to me, so she couldn't do anything about it.

Hayk (26:35)

So then we introduced all the usual tools. We would have objective and key results meetings every Monday. So it went, it literally ran as Google. And that's why we managed in a very short time to not only sort of focus on the main products and sort of retreat from products that are not profitable. We are not strong yet and just doesn't make sense for us to do. We brought in a partner to do ERP solutions, white-labeled ERP solution, the CRM, the HR, whatever for SME, because we did a little bit of serving turnout also. This was something that was really in demand and it was costly. So, whatever there was in the market was costly. We brought in someone who was doing it for very cheap. So basically just go look at the data, see what data tells you, combine that with a bit of customer, like what they say, and then combine it with some trends. There are three sources, the right data, customer feedback, and trends.

Hayk (27:25)

And then you'll come up with, okay, well here's what the product should look like. And then we would of course launch it on a test basis and see what's the reception and then fully offer it. And also I guess a telling sign is that the product team, we were contracting a Vietnamese house for most of the backend development product team, started drowning in sprints. So, we basically introduced agile development for the first time in Yellow Pages. I guess everything was fresh, first time, Google, first time, agile, having processed the first time. So yeah, there's a lot of, lot of stuff that we changed. We revamped the logo. I mean we went all in. The only place where we haven't changed the logo was the building because it was like $50,000. So we took out the paper from beneath the walking fingers. Yeah. We had to completely rehaul everything because we wanted this fresh new digital relevant thing for SMEs and that's what we did.

Sebastian (28:18)

Right. So you just mentioned decision-making based on data. What kind of data did you actually have when you came in? Was there structured systems, was there sort of data [...] itself?

Hayk (28:26)

It's a very good point because the Yellow Pages is stereotypical, the thought of sitting on a lot of data, but you're right, there was so much of first, out of date data. So there's a lot of silos, not synced, out of date, and in some cases completely useless data, like telephone numbers. What do I need telephone numbers? I don't have a name or any other information piece attached to it. So we started, luckily we still had, for example, the Internet Yellow Pages or the Yellow Pages portal was there. So we could track, for example, a lot of behaviors of users. So we started basically introduce a few, I forgot what was the name of the software. We introduced something that could collect, for example, the moment you're on a website, where do you go, what you click on, and that stuff. So we actually started collecting, what we thought was useful data. And then, the rest of it was basically, I mean we looked at some of the data we had. Most of it we thought was useless or required a lot of work to make something out of. We had CRM data, so every time, so SME sales, so when you go, you sell to an SME, what product you sell. We had all that data, that was useful. So SME data, portal data, and a lot of us just going out and talking and doing surveys and interviews, was the data that we had. Otherwise all that million data points or so where, I mean to be very frank with you, most of them were not either relevant or useful. So yeah, we went, I think one of the biggest shifts in our way of doing things was that mentality shift that you go from being an assumption or technology-oriented company to more being data and customer-oriented company.

Hayk (30:05)

Instead of you assuming it's a cool technology and everyone has to happily jump on it, just like you did, should see actually what's in it for the SMEs. Because at the end of the day it's, what would you call, get things or jobs are done or what's in it for them, right? It has to solve something or it has to do something for an SME. And I'm just assuming it's something good. I mean for me it's common sense, but apparently, for a big company, a public company, there wasn't common sense at all. A lot of very smart people were involved, wasn't common sense for them. And then I come in and I think likely for me, I didn't blurrily shy away. You know, especially that a lot of Singaporeans feel probably the first few days you don't want to say something upsetting.

Hayk (30:45)

But then, and I remember one time someone said, you're doing the things that they've never been done. Like it's not been done this way. I said you've been doing the same thing the way it's been done today, this way you are where you are and that's why I am here because it cannot continue the same way you've been doing because it doesn't make sense anymore. So, yeah, that's the data part. I think for me maybe the biggest achievement was the mentality shift. I mean that's what I'm really thinking was the biggest achievement, that they saw for themselves that assumption based on, I know better than, so it's either assumptions about technology or it's like I know better what the SME wants. Are these two types of assumptions. Neither is correct usually because the problem is when you're too much in sales and in the SME market, you think you know better what SME needs, but they don't.

Hayk (31:33)

So, I know they need this. How do you know? Did you ask them? I'm not saying just take their feedback as your Bible and they execute, but it's a data point. Then see what's the trends, he what the other competitors are doing. Like again, I don't haven't read it anywhere. It's pretty common sense, but it's not. And another point after that mentality shift and we had to show them that this is, so we will suggest something, we will do demos here, you see the results. Okay. Now you see for yourself. So we had to do a lot of training of free training for salespeople as well because their pitching was like, I've seen them a pitch. We would share though, I would go out and share to ourselves people who are selling SME services like website or advertising. Unbelievable. It was disastrous at the beginning.

Hayk (32:17)

Like, there is no coherency or consistency. You go, you can't even speak proper English or Chinese, you mixed up, and it's all, a bit like a bazaar potato sell. Hey, yeah. Well you know, we are, we have that website thing and then the Google thing. You're talking about Yellow Pages, you're not talking about the garage startup. Yeah. So we had to revamp everything, train them properly, tell them to kind of words they have to use. Even commended on like how the way you have to dress up and stuff like this. You're talking special to a lot of older generations SME's, I mean, small details like this make a lot of difference. And, apparently, the sales manager was very high level, so she didn't, she thought she had it all worked out or figured out and she knew all the buzzwords - Google AdWords. I don't know, Google insights on this and that, but then turned out she wasn't, so we spent then, again, it wasn't about finger-pointing or accusing, but we spent a lot of time just training the team. The good thing is I got, them buying initially, not that easy, but once I got the buy, they saw that I'm not there after their jobs and stuff. We were there to help the company. So there's the most important takeaway, that they realize, when I talk, I talk about it. You have to get them to understand that it's not about you or me, it's about this company's in this case, survival. If you put there, then they are no longer looking at details of what you're doing. They know that whatever you do is in that same interest, it's not for yourself. And you're not getting paid a lot for it. And I made sure that they know, I'm just here trying to really save this and really take it to the next level.

Sebastian (33:53)

A lot of these seem to point to the direction that everyone is in a way of talking about digital transformation is not really about digital assistance, it's about the mindset. So what about, what are some of the other cultural challenges that you've encountered? I guess, in the mix of a public listed company, a quite old company with a lot of people who have been there all their lives and that in, maybe also a culture, that a sort o company, you just got familiar with, but it's still, not really first nature to you. What are some of these challenges that you came up against?

Hayk (34:31)

Culturally? Challenges were both Asians race, so I still think it's not the company that has at least all the minorities of even Singapore represented. It's predominantly Singapore and Chinese. All the C-levels are Singapore and Chinese. All of them are, let's say above 60. All of them have been in the company for at least 10 years or previously they had a very successful track record in their respective whatever. So, that made them seem like if you like experts or someone who is very well, who suppose to know really well what they're doing. So, may I come in? I was younger than all of them. Probably their kid's age. My background was very diverse. That didn't help. So, when they checked, I'm pretty white. I'm pretty broad, so I've done this, I've done that, I've done that, I've done that across geographies. So instilling in them immediately a trust of this guy has not done the same thing many years.

Hayk (35:36)

I didn't have that, because neither is the same country nor is the same industry. So it's even less. So, I didn't check the same point, they would have had because they would have gone, gone mostly the same. Like I've done this, this, this is the same thing and same type of industry or same industry. So I was, my credentials didn't click and then I am much younger and then I'm a white guy. And that white guy, last time I was faced with that before Singapore, was in Africa, in Mozambique. There it's all Black or mostly Black, there's 10% white and when you're white it doesn't matter where you come from, your white. I had similar, it's not as sweeping kind of a generalization, but I'm white, [...]. And so, coming and telling them how to do things. That was the third point.

Hayk (36:10)

Like I come in, I'm new, so I don't have trust, because of my credentials. I am white, I'm young, and then I'm telling them what should be done very differently from what they've done. So, all of this is points against me. So I have to tell like I could not be very politically correct and very accommodating and likable in many cases because my job by its definition was not. I was supposed to be confrontational, I was supposed to question and I was supposed to suggest a better way of doing things. So, I had to change things. A lot of those execs had big egos, didn't go well. Again, I didn't have any single point which was in my favor. Everything was against actually. So, good thing was that the CEO knew about this and his daughter was working for him as well. So, his daughter and one other guy who eventually became a good friend of mine, who was one of the director's sons, both of them were working for him.

Hayk (37:05)

So, he said since the beginning, why don't you all work together? Which I already thought of doing. He said you have to take these two guys with you, at least two initial meetings. Their presence is going to give that confidence that you are not just some rebel. So, yeah, and then eventually both of them became like my close team. I mean we were like three of us and eventually I will basically delegate it to either of the two to do certain things. So, but without them initially, I wouldn't, they wouldn't like to take me seriously though, obviously. There was, who's this guy? But the fact that the two of them - that this one is the daughter of the CEO, that one is the son of the, you know, that other director, so that helped. So, these were the cultural challenges, like again, both of these two people were very open, well educated, so they had no problem and they knew that I am there not because I'm well-paid or because I have some huge career prospects, which I didn't. I mean, Yellow Pages at the time, sorry guys, but the Yellow Pages is not Google or like I don't know, some sort of a company. So they knew that I'm there, why I'm there. And they had vested interest because both of their parents were pretty much shareholders. So they had all the interests to help him and yeah, it was a win-win for all of us. So three of us became like a close team and we basically did what we did. But, I mean a lot of cultural challenges, I talk about it just a whole different section.

Sebastian (38:33)

In the beginning when you came in, was there an overall vision for how the company understood itself that you could use to make decisions?

Hayk (38:43)

So, just to give you an idea, when I came, apparently I think there were one or two tentatives of bringing someone. I met at least one person, who was still around, who was brought in to do something about the business turnaround. But somehow, and I don't know the detail, what I know is that he didn't work out and he was very jaded. So, that same day, when I was being presented to VP's and the c-levels, he was also brought in and the CEO told me that he did something and he, I mean just the cynicism of his first two sentences was lean enough for me. I'm like, okay, maybe I shouldn't be talking to him that much, because I feel it's not going to be very helpful. But, to answer your question, so when I first came for my first-ever meeting with the CEO that was organized, I was basically, what did was I did the homework of seeing what's the landscape, what the Yellow Pages is doing, and then there are two types of Yellow Pages.

Hayk (39:40)

There's the one that's like in Canada that's really advanced, the biggest advertising agency in Canada, and then there is the kind of Zombie versions which are like more in this part of the world. So, when I started talking to the CEO, it was clear that there is no clear sense of neither the vision nor the direction nor anything. It was pretty much like, let's do more of the same, or maybe let's just put in a youtube video or let's maybe have a different website. There's the kind of thinking. So, the CEO very quickly went down to business. He said, so what do you think is the vision? Something else, he wanted to test mine and see which one. I feel there wasn't much of a vision and he was, I mean he was humble and open about it. Said, look, I am not really digital.

Hayk (40:21)

I've been trying this, brought in some people, didn't work out, need someone to do it. I said I've never done. He looked at my CV, you having enough background, like the diverse background that I think you should tell a shot We haven't succeeded, maybe you will, but I think you have a better shot than us. So he didn't have, I said, well guessing my vision should be to go in the same direction as Yellow Pages can, to become more relevant. Bringing all these things that SMEs would love to do. Customer acquisition in terms of advertising or putting their online presence. Maybe create websites for them or do, I don't know, logistics or distribution on their servers. You can have a marketplace in Yellow Pages where you distribute SME kind of products or services, but there will be the direction, you know, to make it relevant.

Hayk (41:03)

When you started in the fifties, sixties that's what you did. You help SMEs grow. Now ask yourself from a first principle point, was there a thing you can do to make SMEs grow today? Now you have social media. Very important channels or maybe offer that, maybe you come up with the marketplace, maybe you help them with their financial pains because that's another pain point. Maybe you could give them a payment system or POS machine or something. So, there were all these questions. I mean, I helped them think maybe from that point of view of a beginning, or a first principle or fundamental, what is that we can do to be relevant. And that's the direction, that we took in the digital business unit. I mean that's the beginning of every decision we took. We went back said, does that make sense? I mean this or that or that.

Hayk (41:52)

The print was very relevant in let's say 50s or 60s, but because there was no internet, know nothing. The only way you could grow as an SME, as you put up advertising once a year in some big magazine, and then everyone would go on reading because that's where everyone would take their information. But guess what? Now there are multiple online channels. It is online and offline. You can mix, there are a lot more other things that didn't exist. Payments Systems were not that kind of, they didn't even exist in any form at the time. Now there are, that's a big pain point. How can we address that? So it's demand and problem demand addressing and problem-solving what we did for SMEs.

Sebastian (42:33)

So when you come into a situation like this and everything needs to be done and of course, there's not enough time in a day to even get started. How do you decide what to do first?

Hayk (42:43)

So we did a bit of what's called an impact analysis, right? So we analyzed the kind of impact, that each of these actions will potentially have. We prioritized it based on impact. So we came out, for example, top three pain points of SMEs are not top things, top wishlist in other what's called the ice cream and or under an aspirin analogy right, aspirin is needed to have, Ice Cream is good to have. So we always set to do on the 80/20, I made so in our digital business unit. So I didn't make anyone do anything, except two things. Everyone had to read Richard Koch's 80/20 and One Minute Manager. Everyone had to read these two books, because One Minute Manager, is what we used internally for our managements, you know. So, and then the other thing was we had to prioritize everything. As you said, we don't have time, we don't have resources. We had a very limited budget. So we had to basically figure out what makes sense on impact analysis, what we did basically. Here's what we'll do. What's the impact on that? Does it, is it worth doing this or should we do this? And that's where we would get our top lists.

Sebastian (43:48)

Okay. In hindsight, obviously, every company is different. Every transformation is different. Is there anything that you would say, okay, if anybody's starting out on a transformation pass today, here is a couple of things to look out for, some pitfalls to avoid?

Hayk (44:06)

Yes. One. Um, I would say just, I think the very, very first thing that they need to do. There are two things. One is to go back to the basics or the fundamentals of what the company's vision is or solely define that vision first. Because everything is going to start from there. Every decision has to come from there or based on whatever is in that vision. That's what we did. That was my like, every time we talk or we'd have like a meeting with managers and outsiders would say, this is where we wanna be. That's our direction. So to go there we need this, this, this, this, because that does few things, right? One, you bring everyone on the same page, and or where you are, you rally your forces so to speak. I know it's a military sort of a term, but this basically you rally forces.

Hayk (44:56)

You're here, all of you are here and that's where you want to be there. So what do we have to do to go there? And the second thing is, so questioning a lot like does this product make sense? Like once you have the vision, go more granular, what are the products? Do they make sense in terms of that vision? Does the culture make sense in terms of the vision? What do the departments or units make in terms of, I mean you have to basically validate all of the staff against your vision and then you go to the next level and next level. And then the other thing is you have to make sure and probably spend a lot of time getting that mentality shift, because usually when they're in the situation when they need to turn around, there is a lot of egos, a lot of assumptions, a lot of stagnation, a lot of sort of probably we did this before, a successful and maybe something is wrong now, but there needs to be a mindset shift as you said. There has to be an understanding that we can no longer do what we have done.

Hayk (45:52)

I think there are two main things, fundamentals, questioning and figuring out your vision and the second is understanding that it's no longer we have done this, we've done that. Let's think together what's the best way to do this. That's really just a question. A lot of it is not rocket science. A lot of it just requires a bit of checking around. Looking at competitors, looking at the market, and talking to our customers. When you do these two things, I think everything else will fall into place, but you have to like - vision first, fundamentals as the second part of the vision if you like, and then make sure everyone has the same mentality because if they don't buy into your, and I had that. We had initially the board will say, why don't we all get all the c-levels to use this tool or that tool?

Hayk (46:34)

I said, look, if they don't buy into this vision or they don't understand that they're doing something in a way that shouldn't be done, no amount of me technologically empowering them is gonna help, and these the same for SMEs by extension. If they don't realize that this is the new way of doing things, I can give them all the tools, they will not use them. Is that shift first has to have the mind shift and then you can build a process around that, and then you can give them the tools to execute the process. If you don't have that, then you can have the greatest vision but then nothing is gonna have to get that. Or on the other one, if you have all these tools and stuff, but there is no vision, everyone is doing everything on the right and left and you spend a lot of time and resources on and it's completely inefficient. But I think there are two are like a both necessary and complementary to each other.

Sebastian (47;26)

The super interesting back story on that. And then after Yellow Pages, so now you are at Nexmo.

Hayk (47:32)

So, I am at Nexmo. Again, the reason is the same rationale. I was actually sort of contact, when I was still at Yellow Pages that hey, you know, I don't even know till today, how they found me, but they wanted me to join this, at the time Nexmo was, I think like 15 people in Singapore. Now it's around more like 60, so I was contacted to join in as one of the heads of BizDev for the region and I didn't know anything about the communication industry. So I was like, well SMS, OTP, how impactful can that be? So my metric has always been what's the impact, whether it's on a business or an end customer.

Hayk (48:09)

But I was curious enough because I realized that communication can play a big role in how businesses happen or do their things and I was right. It plays a huge role. You'll think of boring things, like SMS, what could that do, but it does a lot of stuff. It impacts businesses in such ways, I'd never imagined.

Sebastian (48:27)

So, what are some of those ways?

Hayk (48:28)

So, for example, there are few touchpoints, right? That's usually it's in a product or in marketing or outreach that you use communication. If you're a bank as an example, communication is an essential component of what they do, because every transaction has to get some sort of communication around it. Before, for example, you're sending money, something before something, after, if that communication breaks down, the product breaks down. Like for example, if you're sending money on your DBS and you don't get a confirmation, you're like, is the money sent.

Hayk (48:58)

And let's assume for now you cannot really go in a dashboard and check. You have no idea because you expect to get communication. So people have this what's called immediacy expectation of immediacy in terms of communication, whether that's sending a tweet or getting a payment notification. And that's why it's critical for a lot of products because many, so that expectation end-users' is there. So, whatever the product I have, I have to have the interaction with that product. And that usually means informal, some sort of communication, push notification, SMS, I don't know, alert, something like that. And when there is a bad thing happen and users complain, call and then they come to us say, what the hell is happening? You are going down? So, for example, when servicing a company that is servicing in this term, it's a loyalty company, but they use our capabilities in their product.

Hayk (49:48)

DHL originally uses them. So every time there's one number that doesn't get an SMS, there's a huge hula that goes to that company, that comes to us saying what's happening in Indonesia? Some roaming numbers didn't happen. So these guys deliver it, I don't know, 300 dollars maybe didn't happen. And then we have to go check what happened. One SMS makes a lot of difference and not just banks. It's logistics, entertainment. Companies like Grab for example, so once we were servicing Grab's customer centers like it's all on the cloud. So when they call and complain, there is an emergency and there's a button that they call and talk to you. That's done by Nexmo or any similar. So, the idea is that again, if you click this and nothing happens, you're screwed, if it's an emergency button. You can have issues because they can sue you.

Hayk (50:38)

So we had cases where literally like, cases of judicial procedures and stuff happened, because some SMS or some voice message, didn't go through or somehow got lost. So, I didn't know that either. It's critical because outside of the core product everywhere, I mean I jokingly say like when I go on, try to talk to a new customer or company or whatever, I say, are you a business? Yes, it's all leading questions. Do you have customers? Yes. Do you communicate with them? They look at me by the time they were looking at me, like suspiciously, where you're talking about. They're like, yeah, of course, we do. I said so we can help you. We can evaluate, like what do you mean? So yeah, we have this, this, this, this, this, SMS, email, voice, chat, video.

Hayk (51:24)

Anything else we're missing? A Youtube video. Not Youtube, maybe Twitter, we don't have Twitter, but everything else there is. So you're communicating. This provides cable communication capabilities. Now, t's I like you. I couldn't imagine, but it's supercritical for a lot of businesses, especially financial insurance, like all these BFSI banking, financial institutions, insurance, all this, their logistics. Think of any time where you need some sort of communication, whether it's logistics, eCommerce, bank, all the most critical things in your life have lot of communication. Now, if you pay attention to it, you're like, oh yeah, like every time I pay my Amex, there is a notification. If you haven't done it, call this, if I don't get it, I'll panic. I'm like, someone used my card.

Hayk (52:10)

Or when I see an expense I didn't think of where I don't have an SMS, I'm like, what's happening? Someone is abusing my card, right? But there's the thing, now there is a user mind I actually pay attention at this things and I take it for granted because this is the immediacy economy or whatever they call it.

Sebastian (52:26)

We all take it for granted, right?

Hayk (52:27)

We all take it for granted, right? And then if I were you, if someone told you to like me about this, I would like oh, and suddenly you start paying attention. The other is an alert, alert there, there. For you it's like normal like air, right? You don't take it, but when you pay attention, there's a lot of criticalities.

Sebastian (52:42)

So what are some of the key trends and developments in that area and any new products?

Hayk (52:46)

There is convergence. So there's contextual communication as a term that's coming now. It's basically because a lot of these communication channels: voice, text, chat, the chat is WeChat, WhatsApp, fiber anything or video. They've all been siloed. The trend is converging everything and making it contextual. So for example, the same Grab, right? They can take information from the Call Customer Center, who is the caller, what's the last time they called, what's the issue? And next time you reach out to them on their mobile application, they can say, oh, okay, we see that you did this, do that. So, this till last few years wasn't possible, because of technology, it wasn't possible. Now, there are a few companies that are providing kind of a like API functionality or capabilities which allow you to contextually see, which are the touchpoints of the same customer. You have a telephone number, they can show you Viber, WhatsApp, email, SMS, voice. Suddenly you can have all these touchpoints in your database and you can see accordingly what's the data, what's the complaint about each of the touchpoints. So it's just very helpful. That's the convergence that's happening. And then, you just build on it, so API and basically providing APIs or infrastructure blogs for all of these communications. That's the other trend. They call it API economy, right? Everyone is now in - you have a service, you are very good at it. Converted into API, give it to someone else who can use your infrastructure, your services. It's the Ecosystem play.

Sebastian (54:17)

Now everybody has to rebuild everything.

Hayk (54:22)

Yeah, correct. That's exactly the reason why this is now becoming more and more trendy as well and communication. API's are by far probably the most impactful one. I mean I saw recently a company, it's insurance API. It's not even like communication, whatever insurance does. To me, it's the next level. Insurance so far to me, I imagine paper, claims, this is an API you can build. Because insurance has been one thing missing in a lot of these marketplaces and the eCommerce companies because to get an insurance company to partner up with you or give you a service, it's very manual and analog and suddenly, here there is an API. You just don't even care to talk to AIA or AXA. You just use that capability to put in your thing and suddenly all your customers have access to all these insurance companies without your making a single move on talking to anyone. I mean, disclaimer, I don't have anything with them. It's just an interesting concept that I saw also API and this industry could be very interesting.

Sebastian (55:22)

Yes, absolutely. And besides this, you also advise and give talks about topics like artificial intelligence, blockchain. Tell me a little bit more about that story. What got you interested in that?

Hayk (55:34)

Yeah, it's the same rationale, right? So I like to help or grow something, right? It's a business or I'll help people to grow their own businesses. So in that same logic, I like to talk about some of my experiences or expertise or whatever you want to call it that I accumulated. So I've been advising in AI since 2011 and blockchain is a more recent addition, since 2017. So, I mean I think this way, right? Once I have specific types of experience that I think is worth sharing, then I like to share about it. And most of my speeches and etc there, I mean I try to think from the other person's or audience's perspective what will be interesting for them because I will put myself in their shoes. So, I like to talk about the trends, myths, ways of doing things, methodologies, etc. for AI, blockchain, edge computing, data mining, etc.

Hayk (56:30)

A lot of this is all AI and blockchain in particular, because one, they have common things -Data. One lives on data, one produces a lot of data, and two, because both of these are changing and disrupting a lot of legacy in systems and industries. Both of them, in some cases together. I have a speech that's both, Blockchain plus AI in the industries, they disrupt. So, it's very important because again, like if I were the audience, I would love to know all this information. There's so much info on the Internet, you don't know where to find what, what's more, relevant what's less. But events are more in your face and you can always go and talk to people. And if you have someone who talks to you sort of helps you faster to know about something. I would appreciate it. And I do appreciate it when I go and see someone talking.

Hayk (57:18)

So I tried to do the same also. So I talk a lot. Last year, I think 70/80% of my speeches were about blockchain. It's just a new, the most recent, and blockchain, I mean again taken business there are huge implications and I'm not even going to talk about the trading and the cryptocurrencies. Just from a business perspective. There are huge implications of what blockchain can or is doing already from a technological perspective. And I feel there aren't enough saying voices, who are talking about it in the region. Unfortunately, there's, I mean this year is better, but last year, especially in 2017 lot more of either narcissistic or very self-centered kind of talks were around. They were trying to fundraise or promote their projects. So I felt, and I still think there is a gap in terms of just educating and raising awareness about the trends, the issues, the current technologies in blockchain or AI. I always try to fill in this kind of gap, see what's there. I mean I might not be very accurate, but I feel like there is a gap. I go there and focus on that gap.

Sebastian (58:26)

So for example, within the blockchain. I mean the last 12 years if we're focused on helping and the SMEs grow. If I talked to SMEs today, they're very unsure and insecure about what can this do fast? Is this something we can use? What kind of applications do we actually see in the real world that are either possible already today or would be possible in one or two years from now that they should seriously think about?

Hayk (58:51)

In terms of blockchain? So, whether you know it or now there is already a lot of blockchain applications deployed. Not on a pilot level, but on a serious level. A lot of it is internet banking settlements. And the reason why we don't know about it, which is one of the main things are we don't have awareness about it, is because a lot of it is very B2B and it's financial sector or supply chain, mostly this of the most mature. And where you have actual applications working well. They're all under the hood because they are not on your iPhone. I mean the good metric is, is it on your iPhone? Right. But there is this for SMEs, it depends. We've seen projects like for example, there is a good project called Domicigo.

Hayk (59:40)

It's Interland. Domicigo is a blockchain company, built on the blockchain. No one knows about it or many people don't, because they don't advertise it. It's a payment system Interland like you're, I don't know, FavePay or your GrabPay, very used. For SMEs, it's less obvious because SME pain-points, a lot of it has to do with either customer acquisition or it has to do with a payment system. So, maybe that could be something for SMEs or it has to be with distribution or logistics of their services. So if you're, there's a marketplace, so there are many marketplaces build on blockchain. Unfortunately, most of them are not scalable. Problem with the technology like blockchain is that the current frameworks you have outside of a few, let's say, IBM like hyperledger suit of blockchain projects on whatever, they are not as scalable. So bringing it to an SME could make sense, if the SME doesn't have any high turnover, very like stringent technology core requirements of a marketplace.

Hayk (01:00:40)

But if you want to mainstream a more skilled version, most of them still don't qualify. It's only a few that, let's say companies as IBM or Infosys have and it's very B2B and it's in finance and I think it'll take maybe another few years to come up with some end-user iPhone type of applications. But by the time it should be probably pretty mature, it's like the analogy would be AWS, right? It started first. It wasn't, you know, it started initially as Amazon was using it itself. Then they figure out, okay, let's just spin it out. Everyone would mean this. At the time it wasn't that scalable and when it has spun out, it wasn't that scalable either and people wouldn't go, I don't know, maybe some did, but mostly you wouldn't hear, I'm using AWS and my technology is great, right? People don't go say I'm using ios.

Hayk (01:01:26)

So buy my application, right. So the technology at the end of the day, right? People don't buy you, because you have that or this or that technology. So blockchain is at that stage where let's say AWS falls or ios was first two years after they became more mainstream. So it's kind of mature and in the end, it's going to be like a checkbox. I want a blockchain version of my marketplace where I don't want it, it's going to be that. Right. So I don't know yet if there are so many applications for SMEs right now, probably payments will be the most mature like payments systems, Escrow systems. I don't know any like end-user, like a Steemit. Steemit is not an SME solution, Steemit is like a tech crunch or medium. You can publish articles, it's a content publishing company also they don't advertise they are blockchain but they are - Steemit.

Hayk (01:02:14)

So, there is a few that you might know as an end customer but all of them have wanted to and they don't advertise that they are blockchain, you will eventually find out and for SMEs again probably payment will be the low-hanging fruit right now. Give it a few more years. Maybe you'll have some nice scalable marketplaces maybe on blockchain maybe, but the application or, sorry, maybe just to complete the answer, the application is that if you type on technology or benefits of that specific tech, which is blockchain, every take has a specific benefit and that's why anyone would use it, right? AWS was maybe more frictionless at the time or it's the fact that it spares you from having an on-premise server, right? It's all in the cloud and it has all these tools and bells and whistles that you click, click, click them.

Hayk (01:03:03)

Then you can have a website hosted on them, right? So blockchain has similar rights, their centralization, tokenization, and let's say immutability, right? There are three main things. If you need the marketplace, for example, you're an SME, you want the marketplace where your track record is going to be staying there and no one is gonna break or heck or change, it may be a marketplace has to have that immutability. Maybe you can use blockchain for that. Or if you want the tokenization or unitization of your either decision making or value distribution in a system, that could make sense as well. Let's say, I don't know, what's a good example? Let's say. Let's say you have Facebook kind of a system. Think of token, as like a profile, an individual profile, right? Like people can add things to your profile, you can add stuff on your profile.

Hayk (01:03:50)

I can add a reference to your profile and then people can exchange and say, here's my profile, right? So if you need that kind of profilization or tokenization, in some ways you can also use blockchain. So if and when, I mean my point if and when I need a tech or a product that needs to type on these three main benefits of blockchain, then you can implement blockchain. Your question could be how much is it compared to, how does that compare to existing wants to do the same functionality. In most cases it might not well compare as well yet, give it two years, I think you will compare. Because of immutability, you can have it without any blockchain, look at marketplaces like Amazon, they don't need any blockchain. They're super scalable. They can do all the immutability you want if they want to.

Sebastian (01:04:35)

Well, they could also take and had it, all the records if they want it.

Hayk (01:04:39)

Correct. So centralized. Right. So, so technology is not there yet to ever apple to apple comparison with the existing walls of the, even about their main benefits. It's not there yet, but it's, it's gonna mature. And that's the only, I mean I'm pragmatic. It's only to apply when really you need these few characteristics of that tech and it's already mature enough for you to apply and get your stuff done using that tech. That's well, maybe not now. I see you in few years.

Sebastian (01:05:07)

And on the other side, we're talking about artificial intelligence or maybe let's talk specifically about machine learning. Applications seem to be getting quite mature and actually rolled out with many corporations globally but also there around Singapore with us when the general smaller business segment, we don't really see so many applications yet being in use. What do you think is bottle-necking the really widespread usage of machine learning algorithms?

Hayk (01:05:38)

So in Asia, I think, so again there is a bit of similarity to blockchain a lot of it is very B2B. The first ones that started using machine learning, were investment funds. While they were doing those, they will have one machine learning algorithm, give it the stock portfolio of one company on heavy trained on that company and figure out or all sort of noise and eventually speak back, say this as top-five stocks in your portfolio, go more into them. And then the human analyst would double-check, make sure the financials are correct, and then put more money into it, into it. Right. So machine learning has been widely adopted by now in a lot of B2B related businesses, whether that's data generation, analysis, or prescription. The reason you might not again be so much aware of it, there's one, because again it's very B2B.

Hayk (01:06:30)

Number two, a lot of it happens very seamlessly, so you might not even know like a lot of Google translate is machine learning basically like you might, I mean you've probably ever guessed that it's like there's a lot of people who want, but machine learning doesn't, I mean, so you don't see a machine learning used here, as everything from Siri tool, like for example, my iPhone, I'm sure yours too says every week as here's your week weeks usage of things and that's where you can probably use next week or so. A lot of this is using machine learning. A lot of it is in your iPhone as well. Just you don't know about it because it's not flagged out as such. So there is a lot of usages. If you ask me in Asia, specific Asian cases very now trendy is chatbots or virtual assistants, which most of them I think are pretty much failures. So robot advisors, if you go on the more on business level of that, a lot of them are not anywhere in terms of anything. Your question is also what's the trend or what's the why anymore of use.

Sebastian (01:07:31)

At least in more traditional industries, what we see is that it's not really that much used yet. I mean end consumer products. Okay. Yeah, sure. You might talk about chatbots, the robot adviser, Siri, and all of that. Absolutely. But then when I look at, for example, agriculture, mining, chemical, the kind of industries that we're also dealing with, more commodities, it's not really there yet.

Hayk (01:07:55)

I think, I won't know all of, I don't know a lot about this industries, but a lot of, for example, what I know is there are weather prediction applications and stuff for specific parts where you have to see, for example, when is the rainfall coming, was the dry season, etc. A lot of these weather prediction happens using machine learning as well. So they take the data, they look at precedence, or they, they look at what there was before and then they predict and that data goes down to, let's see, farmers, etc. They know if they should sow this type of crop or that type of crop, based on the rainfall that's expected. So there is that, but maybe not as mainstream, because the whole industry is not very technologized if you like it because I think I would think about it, it's because most of that.

Hayk (01:08:37)

Any place where there is more data, so ML has been, I don't know historically, I mean there is five sorts of camps spread, but the most known one now it's what they call it the connection is camp, which is trying to use ideas from philosophy, neuroscience, etc and basically reverses engineering of the brain. You know, you've probably heard all of you heard about deep neural networks and neural networks. The whole Neuron thing is stimulating the brain. So that's the connection is there, Geoffrey Hinton is the main guy in that. So the resurgence of ML or AI is basically last 15/20 years. And the reason is that technologically now the processing can happen and there is a lot more data. This the reason that is just possible now. A lot of the methodology that was used is still like big propagation and stuff.

Hayk (01:09:30)

This is all from the 1980s seventies so it's just the old same old, but with bigger data and more processing power. That's why it's now coming up and anything now that has data on like blockchain, blockchain is still probably five years, six years behind the AI, in terms of maturity, but AI anywhere where you can accumulate data in any one technologically manner, there is AI or ML. I will generalize like that. There isn't, you don't see a lot in maybe chemicals or whatever is probably, it's not very technologized. The ones that are, I'm sure there is already at least some level of machine learning. AI and not necessarily, but machine learning definitely.

Sebastian (01:10:10)

So for companies who are thinking about adopting some sort of new technology, there's not necessarily very proven yet. As I am thinking about maybe SMEs, what would be your advice on how to start engaging and how to actually find the use case and how to get started on that path of adopting new technology?

Hayk (01:10:28)

I think for them it's really about again about their business, right? I never think technology is the first angle or lenses you have to look at anything. You have to see, at least in my view, what's the problem or what's the need you're trying to reach or meet or what's the problem you're going to solve and then you look at what's the available tools and technologies that can help you solve it the most efficiently, not just help you solve the total help yourself efficiently and unsustainably. Let's say for the next few years. There's step two and then usually if the thing with SMEs is unless you're talking about SMEs that accumulate or generate a lot of data, ML doesn't make a lot of sense for a lot of them. At least not at the stage until on when they are a bit more grown-up if you like, because if you like to take some illustrative example.

Hayk (01:11:19)

Let's say you have some marketplace or you're an Alibaba shop, kind of a small shop and you're selling some beauty products or you have a nail salon. Very common in Singapore here, you do not need ML, you probably need an Excel sheet or Google spreadsheets. You don't need so much, I mean ML comes in when you have a lot of data you have to both describe or prescribed and you need something to help you because you can physically not do it, but by definition, SMEs usually don't have so much and the ones that do, let's say Grab or Gojek and I won't call them an SME, but let's say bigger startups, these guys already use it. So, once you reach a certain amount of data where let's say two or three analysts are unable to see or it requires them to spend a lot of time or they can see patterns because they taste more convoluted or complex than maybe you are talking about when you can think of ML, but always my thinking is always to think of ML or AI or any of this is like it's a tool, right?

Hayk (01:12:17)

You're trying to dig the ground with the shovel and then at one point you hit, I don't know, stone or something. You can no longer go, okay, you bring a drill. That's when you bring the drill, right? You don't bring the drill since the beginning, because it doesn't make sense for you. So I, it should be like this, like it's only when you need this. You already have so much data you clearly need an algorithm to take over. Then, uh, for most SMEs, I would say that's few years from their SMEs systems or if they stay SMEs, which a lot of them do, probably never, they don't need. If you are a Go-Jek or there are few types of SMEs, it's either you're a Grab or Go-Jek type or you're an SME type or you're failing after three years. The failure was probably, again by definition they will probably never need. The SME ones probably also are chance they would never really need, it's only the Gojek, Grab types that would eventually need. I mean, I know it to be a crude analogy, but that's what it is. And MNCs, of course, just, almost by definition have a lot of data. If nothing else, their own data. That's where they needed it.

Sebastian (01:13:24)

How do you see the Singapore ecosystem in relation to technologies that we just talked about in terms of the kind of companies that you see coming up here that are using machine learning and other technologies? Do you feel that ecosystem is very leading and mature?

Hayk (01:13:44)

So let's separate AI and blockchain. Blockchain, there has been a lot of hype, a lot of noise seeing. You probably know this was last two years, one day AP Center's a blockchain development. So outside of the US, there are few places in the world that are, let's say, high density in terms of blockchain, startups, projects, universities. Singapore is one of them. So by the sheer amount of all this activity, there is some sort of maturity now that's coming along, etc. If you ask me to point out some really great projects, I would say maybe two, three maximum out of probably a few hundred that I might know of. For AI, interestingly, and I didn't realize it at the time, like a few years ago and I was thinking about it. AI multinationals, again, because most of them are not from here, they brought it with them or they use it, but awareness or startups and stuff, it's relatively new.

Hayk (01:14:43)

I would say it's almost as new as the blockchain. There are few startups, but again, unfortunately, what's pausing here for an AI and ML is little more than the recommendation engine. So let's say Christina buys this book, then Sebastian, like that same book and she bought that book. So then Christine should consider that book. While sure an argue there's some ML in there, but it's mostly I mean need. It's common sense. If two of you like the same book and you bought this, she didn't buy this, then maybe you can consider that as well. I met a few companies, we got engaged for one quantitative trader who wanted basically algorithmize if you like, their trading systems and they met few vendors, AI supposedly leading vendors and you talk to them and all they talk is how they're going to sort the data, cleaning, sort it and then do a little bit of recommendation, an engineer like analysis and then just, I mean to me it's like I don't know, It's not really ML.

Hayk (01:15:43)

And these are some vendors you think, so mostly I think it's not there. In some ways, I will tell you it's even less mature than blockchain in terms of, the thing is because blockchain has something that AI doesn't. Blockchain has a commercial association with it that the AI doesn't. Then lures a lot of people, more people are aware of blockchain because of that cryptocurrency or the commercial potential gains and stuff. AI, on the other hand, if you think about it, AI startups, if it is officially pure-play AI or some sort of deep tech, they do a lot of research and it comes to the algorithms. There is no usual exit strategies acquisition and they, it's not the usual startup. Possibly someone gets profitable, cash. And then someone will acquire us, we'll IPO whatever. It's usually a few years down the road and hoping some big Yemen's [...] whatever the industry you're catering to is gonna inquire you.

Hayk (01:16:38)

There's not exactly a very promising prospect. It's even less promising than the usual one. If you're young, don't get acquired. Maybe you need in another five years to break even. That is if you can get funding. But the Singapore government is very much pushing towards the smart city, smart tech, smart, this, smart that. So they have and I think, two years ago they created AI, Singapore body, a government body. That's, I mean that's the one way, right? You want to have that technology mature and stuff. You create some government body, put some resource in it, ask them to do some activities. Mostly educational at the beginning. Then some projects then get involved with MNCs and that's what they are doing now. They are doing some projects, some education now getting involved with the MNCs. The same for blockchain exists as well. Actually not just blockchain.

Hayk (01:17:23)

There is Fintech, there are few Fintechs. A lot of them are doing little more than blockchain, but there are a few analogous organizations like AI, Singapore for blockchain. So I don't know, it's maturity-wise. I have to compare, right? To answer your question, blockchain maybe two years behind the US market, which is where a lot of this started, it's a lot more mature there. AIs, I don't know, five, six years behind all the top AI guys with the exception of maybe to sit in the US or Canada. Andrew Ng, who left Baidu, the guy who was behind Google brain and stuff. And there is a guy, who also likes is in China. So there's maybe two China. Everyone else is in either University of Toronto or Facebook or Google. I mean literally decide like the University of Toronto is the guy who invented deep neural networks and he's also in Google. So it's either Google on Facebook or some Canadian University or two guys in China. Literally, that's the top five. So you don't have anyone even close to that in Southeast Asia and not India and not anywhere else. Everyone is on a very immature level? I'll put it that way. It's a big sweeping generalization, but it's where they give it few years we'll get there.

Sebastian (01:18:41)

All right. Thank you very much for your time today.

Hayk (01:18:46)

Do you have any more questions?

Sebastian (01:18:47)

No.

Hayk (01:18:49)

Okay, thanks. This was very informative. Hopefully not just for me. I heard my voice, but also for you.

Sebastian (01:18:53)

I think so. Thank you very much.

Hayk (01:18:55)

Ok. Thanks a lot. Pleasure being here.

Christine (01:19:01)

Thank you for listening to this episode of "Lost in Transformation" with our host, Sebastian from MING Labs. If you enjoy our podcast, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a review on iTunes. Join us next time for another episode of our podcast.