We're virtualising businesses.

Qiscus is designed for teams, platform agnostic and it’s as easy to as chat but as powerful as a project collaboration tool.Supercharged your teams communication by giving qiscus a tryIf you have ever used Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger you will know that if you are a part of a group chat you will get notified even if the message isn’t directed towards you. Qiscus group messaging system allows you to be either a participant or an observer. We built our notification system to compliment both users, participant or observer, well. qiscus passive notifications is designed to only notify you when you are needed.

How it works

There are two types of notification in qiscus; namely; passive notifications and push notifications.

Passive Notifications

Rooms with new messages will display a yellow dot to the left of the Room’s name. This allows you to know a when conversation is active, but does not require you take action and pull you away from work.

Qiscus call or push notification.

Unlike the passive Room notifications, calls allow you to send a personal or public notification inside a room. When you do user’s name 2 things will happen.

A notification will appear at the top right of your qiscus app

Addressing the notification

Reply straight away, dismiss or click through the notification to go directly to the source of the message.

Mobile Notifications on Android and iOS

The same commands for the desktop webapp apply to both our mobile apps when doing “@” calls.

Android Notification via notification drawer.

iPhone notification on lock screen.

qiscus group messaging tool for teams working remotely

In many ways, qiscus interface is as familiar as using whatsapp.

But that’s where it ends. Using qiscus, you can be superman/woman and manage multiple discussions on your mobile, then swing over to your laptop to quickly execute your tasks

qiscus is designed for teams, platform agnostic and it’s as easy to as chat but as powerful as a project collaboration tool.

Whatsapp has exceeded 1 billion users. Similarly for Facebook Messenger. Both are one of the top messaging apps used in this region - for both social and work purposes. One player that is seemingly lagging behind in the race is BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) which made an arguably smart move in 2013 by propelling its Messenger app into the Android and iOS world. But still, it has been plummeting for several years until it made another move to fight back by granting Emtek Group of Indonesia the license to develop new BBM applications and services across various platforms.

And like Facebook Messenger as well, BBM is learning from WeChat’s successful model as its fight-back strategy. Facebook Messenger is vying to be the ‘WeChat’ of the West while BBM is fighting to be at least, the WeChat of Indonesia (which is a huge potential as it is).

What is so special about this WeChat model that BBM is emulating?

On its way to break the 1 billion users mark, users can use WeChat to book train tickets and get their laundry done, order dinner and play the lottery, pick out clothes and play videogames. It’s the remote control for your smart home, a mobile bank, and a way to renew your visa. 

And all these done in a conversational style via a highly-familiar chat interface - an interface which has become almost the default channel of communication even in our daily lives today!

It has pioneered the whole revolution of “chat as the universal interface” - ie you can, for all intents and purposes, live your entire life within WeChat by simply having conversations or chats.

BBM’s slideshow of integrations. Photo credit: Tech in Asia Indonesia.

Understanding this trend, Emtek Group of Indonesia is pushing BBM strongly towards this ‘WeChat Model’ for Indonesia. BBM is revamping itself by inserting multiple integrations: ecommerce (which is a huge craze in Indonesia), entertainment and consumer services (like phone credit top-ups, making utility payments etc), while still keeping its identity as a chat app.

“Having BBM as the center of everything makes a lot of sense,” says CEO of KMK Adi Sariaatmadja.

Indeed, chat has become the ‘universal interface’ for us to perform our daily transactions and interactions between our friends and more increasingly - as we have seen in China’s WeChat - with businesses as well.

But, why would anyone want to interact with a banker, a teacher, a lawyer or even a doctor via chatting? 

For one-key reason: Because chat is EASY and HIGHLY-FAMILIAR.

This whole idea of ‘chat as a universal’ interface stems from the idea that chatting has now become an inseparable part of our lives and we are spending a huge proportion of our days chatting or socialising. PewResearch Centre did a study in 2015 and found that chat is the most widely used smartphone feature, accessed by roughly 97 percent of users. Also quoting Jonathan Libov noted in his own blog post on messaging-based interfaces, “In contrast to a GUI [graphical user interface] that defines rules for each interaction—rules which, frustratingly, change from app to app—text-based, conversational interactions are liberating in their familiarity.”

Therefore, it does make sense for businesses to make your services available and accessible right from the mobile phones but in a simple and highly familiar way - via chatting.

The simplest thing a business can do without costing a bomb....

It’s definitely heartening to observe that the understanding of ‘going online’ has gone deeper than just the creation of websites or delivering services over communication apps such as whatsapp and skype.

However, not many business owners actually understand what’s coming up or rather, what’s up with this whole ‘digitising business world’ stuff. And more important that just knowing, companies need to also know the pitfalls of digitising the wrong aspects of their businesses which will cause little or even negative ROI.

For the latter, we will organise a FREE Chat-Based Sharing (see the details at the end of this article). For now, we shall elaborate more on what’s coming up and its implications to companies - The Two Trends which Companies Mustn’t Ignore.

1) A Boundaryless Digital Ecosystem - Either you spearhead it, in it, or.. Lose the game.

Today, companies are using technology to not only improve their internal processes, but to also drive growth. Growth comes with the need to increase supplies to meet demands, amongst other things necessary for growth. Companies which are able to cleverly expand their supplies and remove growth inhibiting factors such as being heavily constrained to a physical place/location, will have higher chances of winning the game.

There are countless examples on this, like Airbnb, Uber or those closer to home like Gojek. Similarly, we see this in the professional service industries as well.

For instance, Tueetor - an online platform which matches learners and trainers across a range of subjects - aims to provide a faster and cheaper alternative to tuition centres. Since its launch, it now has a digital community of over 1,500 trainers teaching close to 300 subjects ranging from mathematics, yoga to cooking. Tueetor is not the only one revolutionising the education industry.

In the healthcare industry, we have HaloDoc, the online platform with similar concept of providing a healthcare ecosystem comprising a mix of respectable doctors and healthcare professionals to cater to the wide audience of patients of various needs across the huge Indonesia.

Note that these companies, interestingly do not own the ‘supplies’. They simply own the platform. And this is sufficient to displace those ‘traditional’ companies out there who are still isolating themselves in their own locality.

So what does it mean for companies?

These platforms are creating a ‘boundaryless digital ecosystem’ and are posing a threat to companies in several industries, including the Education and Professional Services industries. But it is a threat if businesses let it be a threat in the first place - ie they remain fixated to the current ‘physical way’ of running a business.

Knowing this inevitable trend, IT and business executives have started to do things differently.

A recent Accenture global survey of more than 2,000 IT and business executives found that 4 out of 5 respondents believe that the future will see industry boundaries dramatically blur as platforms reshape industries into connected ecosystems. 60% of respondents said they plan to engage new partners within their respective industries and 40 percent plan to leverage digital partners outside their industry.

Whether you are providing products or services of certain expertise, it’s time to look beyond your own locality and be part of, if not create, a boundaryless digital ecosystem.  Allow customers/clients to access your businesses from wherever they are. And if more supplies are needed, nothing is stopping you from inviting other professionals to come onboard or form new win-win partnerships.

2) The Post-App Era : AI-Powered Chats will be the new business channel.

In what some analysts called as the start of a Post-Apps era, there is a significant change in customer interactions particularly in the rise of dominant messaging platforms over other social apps. In fact, it is predicted that in the course of 2 years, messaging apps will surpass social media apps in popularity.

Not only that, consumers are showing strong preferences for businesses with available mobile access over businesses having just a physical office/location - even in industries which everyone would generally think that meeting physically is a necessity, such as the healthcare industry.

A study by business and technology consulting firm West Monroe Partners shows 80 % of patients prefer mobile to a traditional visit and a record of 31% have used a mobile app to communicate with their healthcare provider about a specific condition.

Now this is a powerful trend if we think deeper.

When customers/clients start using messaging to interact with a business, each query or conversation that happen via the app because a powerful source of data - which, if tracked over time, will reveal some highly useful insights which will not just enable the provision of a more personalised help to customers/clients, but also help the business automate the help given to other clients as well - with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI will enable an app to learn from the generated insights and service the next client that comes in a personalised way, without needing an actual human being to be in the conversation.

So what does it mean for companies?

As a start, companies can leverage on bot-powered messaging apps. Bots are essentially virtual assistants, much like Siri and Cortana. Only the latest generation of bots communicate via text rather than speech, which is what qiscus specializes in.

Bot-powered messaging apps can be used to automate certain business processes or services to clients. For example, when a client needs a legal advice or even a customised training program, bots can be used to carry out preliminary assessments and information gathering from the client - as if a human being is doing so.

This enables companies to scale their services to beyond any physical boundaries but at the same time, reduce the worry of insufficient ‘supplies’ to meet the increasing demand.

Giants like WEChat and Facebook have seen this coming and are investing aggressively in this direction. Therefore, this is something businesses mustn’t ignore.

Keen to Start Investing? Here’s A Word Of Caution.

These two trends are coming and will come fast and furious. Companies which are slow to adapt and change will find it a struggle to remain competitive. On the other hand, those who are investing heavily in digitising their businesses may not generate the ROI that they had hoped for. In fact, a study done by McKinsey have shown that there are pitfalls which have caused some companies to bleed.

So while we urge companies to come onboard the two trends above, there are two things which will be important to take note of :

Pitfalls companies should avoid when investing in a digital strategy

Practical tips on how companies can start riding on the above trends, with ZERO monetary investment. And it works

This sharing will be conducted over a text-based sharing - where the information/data will be shared via a messaging platform AND you can follow our sharing at YOUR OWN TIME. 

NO payment needed, NO specific time for you to attend the session and for sure, NO sales talk but purely something really useful for businesses to note and use practically.

All you have to do is to state your interest here: http://bit.ly/qiscustechchat (All we need is your company website. No contact details needed).

This is a reflection by Muhammad Md Rahim, COO of Qiscus.

We have just ended our annual retreat - an event we all, including all our own family members, look forward to every year. It is the time we refresh, review, refine and revitalise ourselves in preparation for the exciting journey ahead.

Qiscus as a company has indeed grown in many aspects over the years (which we are thankful to everyone including our shareholders); Our solutions are now being used by clients in various industries in multiple countries and we are embarking on several game-changing solutions together with key industry players, which we will be happy to make it publicly known very soon.

But this was not the main highlight for this year's retreat, at least for me. 

During the retreat...

I saw an adorable young girl gently dancing to the tune of a song while sitting on a circular 'stage' (dining table). Indeed, she was the star of the night and I am pretty sure one day she will be a shining star, in her own ways.

I felt the deep relationships our members have with their respective family members, especially the spouses.  They took lots of selfies/wefies with the exquisite beauty of the mountains & plantations in the background.

I participated in a laughing spree along with the others when our members teased and joked with each other. I must say that their energy was unmatchable. They let their hair down and were genuinely enjoying each others' presence.

To me, these are the real highlights of the retreat because they deepen and strengthen the need for us to strive forward and soar up high.

Qiscus wants to help our clients' businesses grow by leveraging on the power of chat and calls. This is not an easy task and requires an awesome team. An awesome team is not defined by the individual talents of each member but by the combination of their talents to produce synergies which will produce great results - results which are beyond expectations - ie say “1+1 = >2”. 

Now these synergies are affected by one key factor: the strength of the bonds between our hearts. Indeed, I felt a powerful bond during the retreat.

Qiscus consciously measures and tracks key matrices to objectively show our clients the impact of our solutions on their businesses. This requires a data-driven mindset and culture. Nonetheless, when it comes to the welfare of our members, we do emphasise on taking care of the 'matters of the heart'. We ensure that our care and concern goes to our loved ones as well. They are the ones who will be there for us during our tough times and hence when times are tough for them, we feel for them and we ensure we provide the support we can as well. 

To us, strong support from our families increases our resilience as individuals and teams. This can only be possible if both qiscus and our families see ourselves as part of this journey together. And indeed this is what I witnessed during the retreat.

In fact, during one of the competition we had - a challenge on who can explain best 'why is qiscus so important to businesses', one of the best answers given was from the wife of one of our team member.

Qiscus is already in the midst of preparing for the post-app era ie the AI-powered era, during which it will be an understatement to say 'things will not be the same". But that's precisely the thought that came through my head when I saw the young girl dancing on the dining table. Her world will be significantly different and qiscus aims to be at the forefront of this 'revolution’ in the ASEAN region. She, as well as all the other children present during the retreat, gave us a reason to strive harder in preparing not just the businesses but also the individual users for the upcoming AI-powered era. 

Indeed, the cute little girl reinforced the importance of the journey we are all embarking on now. 

In this journey of ours, we believe in one key ingredient of success - 'Ihsan'.

This was the key message our CEO, Delta Purna Widyangga in his opening speech during the retreat. He reminded everyone to pursue Ihsan (An arabic word for excellence, the best, perfection) in all that we do. We should strive for Ihsan in our own development, Ihsan towards our clients, Ihsan towards our team members and not forgetting Ihsan towards our families as well. This is a goal each of us should tirelessly strive for and in doing so, success will come.

We are seeing an aggressive revolution of the professional service industries - A ‘wave of virtualisation’ is hitting multiple industries and pressurising professional service firms to rethink, restrategise and transform the way they bring their services to their clients.

The healthcare industry is probably one of the industries that is the hardest or most ‘insulated’ from this ‘aggressive revolution’. Or maybe that’s what most of us think. On the contrary, healthcare industry is one of the industries that is embracing and riding on this wave. And we are catalysing this in Indonesia.

Indonesia’s Healthcare Industry

Healthcare industry itself is probably one of the most complex industries the society has ever witnessed; Strict regulations, lengthy bureaucratic procedures, difficulties in adopting new technologies, imbalance of providers versus medical cases, the exorbitant medical costs etc.

These complexities coupled with insufficient resources, infrastructures, talents etc makes it a real challenge for Indonesia to even meet the basic demands for healthcare, what more ensure the quality of the care given.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention or rather, Innovation.

There are several persistent issues and unmet needs in Indonesia’s healthcare industry such as:

The insufficient numbers of doctors in suburban/ rural areas.

The expensive cost, time and energy for traveling to and from service providers. 

Long queues, congested hospitals, and high exposure to germs and diseases during the process.

Lack of information and confirmation on the doctor’s quality or second opinion from other sources, such as the internet etc

The challenge is immense for sure but it does drive innovation and revolution in Indonesia’s healthcare industry. HaloDoc, supported by Qiscus, is at the heart of this.

Hello HaloDoc

Offering a concept of a walking “virtual” medical kit, HaloDoc application provides the shortcut and instant connection to a Doctor with absolute ease.

Supported by big names backing its progress such as Gojek and also has successfully secured a series A round worth $ 13 million led by a Singapore-based private investment firm last year, users can expect to see more of its integrations to the ever revolutionary app of Indonesian people that is Gojek.

HaloDoc’s most notable shot to fame has to be when the President of Indonesia - Joko Widodo, specifically named HaloDoc as one of the four local startups that he believed will help push Indonesia’s position as “the digital energy of Asia.” This happened just mid of 2016 and within a few weeks of HaloDoc’s official launch to App Store and Google Play.

How HaloDoc Does It Differently

Websites providing medical feedbacks from real doctors or forum discussions have long existed and so have other medical information providers with online consultation menu. So what happened here? How exactly HaloDoc differs?

For starter, HaloDoc has a distinct online platform for online consultation service that is WebRTC based- proudly provided by Qiscus, particularly for its live video and chat technology. Naming it onlineIndone, this platform allows patient to “meet up” with their doctor at any given time for a direct access and live interactions in the fastest, most accurate and safest way.

HaloDoc also connects to other online services such as ApotikAntar or the pharmacy delivery and LabConX which is a home-service for patient laboratory checks. But above all, it is the online consultation platform with voice, video call, and chats with Qiscus’ Web-RTC system that’s won the hearts of millions. Users can pick based on the available or online doctors by their preference, specific medical needs, and a variety of budget. And best of all, payment is cashless and based on per-as-you-use basis - there is a ‘usage meter’ (kind of a taxi meter of sorts) that tracks and charges the patient in real-time.

With endorsement and support from Indonesia’s Association of Doctors, HaloDoc also ensures the quality of the Doctors by screening the Doctors individually. Doctors are screened for their medical licenses and registered legal documentations. To date, there are thousands of Doctors from all over Indonesia already onboard the app. 

In conclusion, some benefits that Halodoc brings include :

A steady supply of “online” doctors, readily accessible nation-wide, even in rural areas.

Cutting all costs, time and energy, particularly from traveling and queueing. 

More quality confirmations based screenings, other patients’ reviews, which in turn improves quality of service. 

Lower medical costs using pay per use model instead of a flat consultation rate. 

Consultation, medicine delivery, and lab checks at the comfort of the patient’s home without much direct interventions.

To all Professional Service Firms out there: It’s time to ride on the wave

Highly driven by technology, HaloDoc is just one example as to how qiscus’s technology can help. Qiscus is on a dynamic path towards many major technological improvements for the lives of many in ASEAN. 

The concept of eLearning has actually been introduced since the dawn of the internet, dating back to as early as 1992 when The Electronic University Network offers a Ph.D program via America Online. But now, we are moving towards m-Learning.

We are already seeing schools seriously adopting m-Learning to overcome certain constraints in Education, especially in the aspect of the lack of expertise/resources in certain areas;

Uruguay has provided one great example of how m-learning not only overcomes learning constraints but taps resources beyond local ground that one ever think possible. Over the course of a week, over 3000 english classes are conducted by remote m-learning method in over a 1000 Uruguayan schools.The tech has made it possible to unite teachers in Argentina with children in Uruguay. 

The M-Learning Technology In Education Industry

The game is changing. As it’s been well established, the Gen Z ( and the rest of the world actually) spends a significant portion of their lives on their mobile phones. So it only makes sense if the schools leverage on this phenomenon by bringing lessons into the palm of students, rather than making them go other places for it.

We were in Malaysia recently and we received many parents complain saying; “My child just wants everything to be accessible in their phones. If they have to go their laptop or load something for very long on the browser, they will just think it’s a hassle and do something else”

And we are pretty sure this is common throughout the region. So this may explain why communication between the students and instructors in the e-learning methodology which mostly occurs through bulletin boards, emails, web-based chat rooms etc are ineffective. 

Now though, the method of m-learning is much more engaging through the addition of social apps with Real Time Technology or WebRTC.  WebRTC technology is now implemented to bring on that essence of effective teaching : one-on-one and directed learning process.

WebRTC technology such as live chat and live video chat, without being tied up to education, is already a phenomena in its own making. WebRTC 

1) Promotes Collaborative Learning In Lessons

Many times, it is a challenge to track the contribution of students in group discussions and monitoring the discussions in classrooms are just time consuming. With webRTC technology, Group Discussions can be held beyond classrooms via the chat and call platforms, while still enabling teachers to track students learning effectively.

2) Facilitates Virtual Lessons With Ease

Because of the ease of integrating webRTC into existing solutions, schools can now power-up their existing solutions with the power of messaging and voice/video calls - therefore easily centralise all school-related work in a single solution rather than having multiple solutions to conduct virtual/online lessons.

3) Enables Teachers to Conduct Text-Based Live Lectures

Well if LIVE video calls/conference are not possible due to certain constraints, students/teachers have the flexibility of conducing text-based lectures. This was made popular in Indonesia by Sahabat Beasiswa as well as Nanonesia. Other countries may want to adopt a similar hassle-free model as well.

4) Facilitate Collaborations Amongst Teachers

Time is essential especially for traveling professors to meet quorum or cover syllabus. With WebRTC platform such as Qiscus, now educators are able to resort to video conferencing and collaborations within the same platform without having to meet physically. Save traveling time while being in multiple locations at the same time with other professors and fellow lecturers.

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The above said, moving forward, schools will need to move slightly faster in adopting this m-Learning mode as the wave of ‘AI-Powered Learning’ are now building up rapidly and washing away the ‘old way of learning’ at an increasing speed. So schools will need to either catch up or be at the risk of being washed away.

Slack VS Facebook Workplace VS Microsoft Teams VS...... The list goes on.

We honestly do admire slack. It's ability to fight an uphill battle of being the main, if not default, work messaging application is commendable, considering that there are many big players like Facebook and Microsoft offering free (or almost free) messaging services which works similar to slack.

One of the pitches/values common between Slack and Qiscus (and Facebook's workplace and Microsoft Team) is that we enhance productivity in work communication. This value has been realised more than a decade ago and is now replacing emails as the default work communication tool (at least for internal communication) and increasingly, companies are turning to messaging applications to have more intimate collaborations with partners or personalised services for clients.

While speaking to our clients in the traditional industries such as healthcare, legal firm, education etc, we realised another thing area which is ‘underserved’: many of these companies are worried about the uncertain future (especially in light of the saga in US politics.. and of course the other parts of the world), such that they very much prefer an IT solution that is able to show a quantifiable improvement to their bottomline.

So now qiscus has another important role to play. Not just about enhancing work communications productivity via qiscus App, but also enabling businesses to deliver services beyond any physical boundaries and at anytime.

This has begun to revolutionise several key industries such as the healthcare industry of Indonesia through Halodoc - we are virtualising services, enabling them to be accessible via consumer's mobile phones at anytime from anywhere. And we are moving to the SEA region to make this happen in other industries and countries as well.

A commendable event indeed.

I don’t usually write about the events I attended or the people I met on Qiscus’ Official Blog. But I think, my experience in KUM warrants it.

KUM2017: Business owners/entrepreneurs from 8 ASEAN countries came together with the purpose of networking and finding opportunities for business collaborations.

Sounds like a normal convention doesn’t it? I have attended many networking events, conventions, conferences etc such that, yes, KUM2017 did sound like a normal convention to me... Until last Monday.

Here are some of the things I experienced and the reflections I made within the short 2 days:

1) It’s not about ‘I’. But about ‘We’.

Stephen Covey says,“Synergy is everywhere in nature. If you plant two plants close together, the roots commingle and improve the quality of the soil so that both plants will grow better than if they were separated. If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more than the total weight held by each separately. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three or more.”

This need for active collaborations between businesses across ASEAN and the importance of breaking out of a localised mindset were repeatedly emphasised in almost all of the keynote speeches - from that of Y. Bhg Datuk (Dr.) Hafsah Hashim, CEO SME Corp. Malaysia, to the speech delivered by Datuk Dr Md Daud Bakar, Founder and Group Chairman of Amanie Group. 

In fact, Datuk Hafsah Hashim was really passionate and adamant about the urgent need for ASEAN businesses to collaborate and increase our influence in the business world. 

She strongly emphasised on the need for collaboration as a means for ASEAN businesses to rise, TOGETHER.

This spirit of collaboration and rising together was anchored with a signing ceremony between representatives from all 8 ASEAN countries present, on their commitment to vitalise the Halal Industry together. 

This spirit of synergising, sharing of expertise and upholding a common commitment of enhancing the business landscape across borders is commendable.

While lots of work need to be done to produce a tangible outcome from this MOU signing, the very point that business leaders across countries are taking a concrete step forward is in itself, an achievement.

In the words of Bapak Agoeng Hadianto Wibowo, President of Exzellenz Group,

“Whatever we have, bring it to the other ASEAN countries so that they can benefit from it and rise up together with us”

I personally think this statement is a profound statement that gives a more inclusive flavour to the whole idea of ‘globalisation’ - which i believe every ‘globalising’ businesses should reflect on.

2) Attendees were genuinely looking for a win-win.

A networking event is worth attending when the attendees see themselves as equal to the other attendees, regardless of whether they are big corporations or startups - ie equal in gaining and giving benefits/opportunities.

And I think the organisers, MUBIN, has done a great job in ensuring this. In turn, it has facilitated lots of potential win-win opportunities between the attendees, including for Qiscus as well. I am just recording two examples below which I believe many of the participants who attended KUM2017 have had similar experiences as well.

Bumping into Datuk Dr Md Daud Bakar

I am deeply humbled by Datuk Dr Daud. I was introduced to him and he agreed without hesitation when requested for a private discussion on a few opportunities that we can embark on together. We had a meeting soon after he delivered his speech, despite having to leave for another important meeting. 

After a few minutes of exchanging our views, he called one of his CEO in one of the companies under his group to meet me the next morning to deepen our discussion. The meeting with his CEO indeed happened and we are now exploring something exciting together.

Bumping into Ustaz Megat Mohamed Amin

Another humbling experience was with the Executive Director of Ikram Musleh, an established chain of school in Malaysia. After having a short breakfast chat with him, he asked for a write-up on how we can help his school, within the afternoon itself. 

So I opened my laptop, raced my fingers over my keyboard and submitted the write-up as per his request. And to my amazement, within the same afternoon, I received a call from him that he has reserved a 30-minute slot during a meeting with ALL of the 40+ school Principles/Heads. Indeed it happened and Qiscus now have access to the doors of the 40+ schools under him.

These are just two of the many potential opportunities presented to Qiscus. It’s a humbling experience and I profusely thank MUBIN for this great business networking experience.

3) Learn about each other; Friendship goes a long way.

Achieving synergy requires high trust and high cooperation and can lead to better solutions than anyone thought of alone.

To me, this is one of the many highlights of KUM2017.

For any business to be successful, building and strengthening relationships are key. And the best way to do this is via casual lunches or gatherings which are away from the rigid business settings. We should not underestimate the importance of such casual sessions in building trust and friendship which will bring business collaborations a long way between people who were previously strangers.

However, the reality is, it is not always possible to have such sessions especially if we are talking about building relationships across ASEAN. While businesses should continuously find opportunities to catch up, we will need to fall back on other ways of networking and building relationships, leveraging on the existing solutions out there, beyond whatsapp groups. (MUBIN may want to explore this).

Moving forward, we look forward to KUM2018. Thank you MUBIN for organising this. Below are the heroes of KUM2017:

In mid 2016, The International Telecommunication Union estimated that there will be whooping 7,1 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide by the end of the year. 

Oh wait, that’s actually almost the global population count! (which currently stands at 7.5 billion).

More fascinating is the fact that it is not uncommon to find families in a rural villages of Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar or even Indonesia to have smartphones - smartphones with access to the internet. In our previous article, we showed some statistics to prove this fact and show that there are more households in Indonesia having mobile phones than laptops/desktops.

Now this is important trend for businesses to note, especially in South East Asia.

Southeast Asia is not immuned to the expansion of mobile connectedness in its citizens’ daily lives. In a study reported by We are Social Singapore dated back in 2015, the digital, social and mobile usage in Southeast Asia have continued to grow rapidly - at the percentage of more than 15% annually.

A fascinating example of just how significant the growth of mobile penetration in Asian countries is can be learnt from Myanmar. With the country opening its democratic policy and economic reform since 2011, the rise in technological progress including an aggressive mobile ‘movement’ has doubled over the years with no sign of slowing down.

What’s also interesting to note is that Myanmar has taken a big leap with its adoption of mobile technology - the concept of “ mobile first” doesn’t apply to Myanmar. Rather, they have taken the approach of “mobile only”, creating an even bigger wave of mobile movement all across the country.

Another remarkable example is Indonesia as shown in the similar study mentioned previously:

Compared to Myanmar, Indonesia is much more advanced in ecommerce as well as its infrastructure. Under the current new government, the country has taken a breath of fresh air towards the development and investment in ecommerce industry along with the policy to provide internet connection for the sake of its people.

More data on Indonesia can be found in our previous article: Chats and Calls are Empowering Businesses.

Everything will be concentrated / centralised in your clients’ palm

As everything is beginning to centralize around mobile devices, businesses definitely need to keep up. Delivering services beyond the ‘physical world’ will be mandatory - Businesses will need to leverage on this mobile trend and start delivering services in the virtual world. Rest assured, this is now possible and reliable with the advancements of WebRTC. This is applicable for both “blue-collar type”, ie : cleaning service, delivery system, etc and also “white collar” jobs, such as medical, legal, and education.

Indeed, the medical industry is one of the industries undergoing a huge unstoppable revolution due to the advent of WebRTC - like what HaloDoc is currently doing in Indonesia. HaloDoc is the only Med-Tech startup in Indonesia that has gotten the attention of Pak Jokowi, the President of Indonesia, and his administration.

HaloDoc has managed to bring access to Doctors / medical consultation into the palms of patients. Now, can you imagine what will the hospitals be feeling right now? ;p

We will try to write up more on this soon. For now, this is sufficient to drive home one key point that should be framed in the offices of businesses (for those who are still relying on physical offices that is):

Marble lobby is the sign of a respectable business. That along with skyscrapers, polished looking receptionist behind the desk, and that shiny giant-sized company logo above it. But taking technology and virtual entrepreneurs into consideration, one might begin to ponder 

“Is marble lobby still a valid barometer to a successful business?”

Lest we forget, Uber is currently the biggest taxi company in the world, without a single vehicle investment. Similarly, Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, and yet there isn’t any hotel building with its nametag on it. This fascinating fact is the sign of how virtual networks is taking over the conventional way of doing business, or a term that we like to borrow for usage  as “uberisation”.

The Wide Awakening of “ Uberised Economy”

Initially, the “Uberised” labor marketplaces took over mostly menial jobs such as delivery, home cleaning service, and the likes. It was once aiming for the blue collar jobs, but it didn’t take much for these tech-preneurs to quickly expand into the arena of white collar jobs. We’re now seeing more and more sophisticated business platforms for modern society unlocking highly skilled services in a whole new way.

The ”uberisation” business model relies on an idea that is based on virtual technological platform, for example, a software tool, an application, a startup process, and so on. It’s about building a network of professionals with one goal in mind : getting things done, as efficient and effective as possible. Plenty of times, this means finishing a task within a few clicks of a button and doing so, remotely or off-site.

Believe it or not, this “uberisation” phenomena is transforming many high-profile industries, such as medical, legal, accounting, among others. 

What this Uberisation Phenomena Means For Businesses

With the rise of this phenomenon, there are indeed implications on businesses:

Going mobile is no longer an option, it’s mandatory.

Mobile-first services will soon be a standard denominator for all businesses. Business are expected to take a mobile-first strategy in order to remain competitive as it enables their services to be accessible at anytime from anywhere. Studies shows that more than half of consumers now prefers to access to services whenever they need it ie 24/7.

Huge + Boundaryless market awaiting to be tapped.

Businesses are no longer ‘location specific’. The world is now the playground or rather, the ‘battlefield’. Even though business may choose to embark on a more ‘localised’ strategy, nothing is stopping competitors from across the globe to provide the same services at a fraction of the cost.

New skills and talents will be needed

Internal collaborations via chats and servicing clients via video calls will require talents with a whole different set of skills. However, with the right tools, this ‘seemingly’ new work environment will be naturally and easily adopted. Well, this will not be too hard considering that individually, we spend most of our lives communicating via the mobile phone rather than face-to-face. So not to worry.

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In any case: we should expect the ‘uberisation wave’ to come fast and furious with the high-speed advancements in the WebRTC technology - ie the technology underlying the awesome voice/video calls and messaging functions that are powering billions of devices.

Borrowing Tom Goodwin’s Words: 

Technology runs on a fast and steady pace that keeps everyone on their toes. Innovations, start-ups, and more tech trends are launched at extremely fast rate, consequently shifting the global perception of the world. With its large impact, technology becomes a mandatory aspect in human’s daily life; 

It is now mandatory for businesses to learn, adapt, implement, advance, and evolve along with it.

In essence, business and technology share one fundamental element: human interaction. The demand for flawless and real-time message exchange in the business world is a crucial factor that can determine the profit or loss of a company. For this reason, it is a matter of importance to apply a reliable, fast, and practical online messaging tool that works in every platform.

Web Real-Time Communication, or WebRTC, is an emerging standard of web communication that makes high-definition, high-resolution, low-bandwidth video, audio chat, and peer-to-peer data transfer as simple as a single browser link. It is the mode of telecommunication that allows instant information exchange with the live transmission system.

Deemed as the future of online communications worldwide, WebRTC provides benefits ranging from improving customer service, increasing efficiency, to boosting significant sales and many more. 

In terms of development, WebRTC is believed to be just entering its infancy phase but it is happening. There will still be many major improvements and advances along the way. All which says, welcome onboard to WebRTC.

WebRTC Growth In Asia

In November 2015, Beijing - the Silicon Valley of China - held the first major WebRTC and Real Time Web event in Asia. Attended by over 600 participants from China, Japan, Korea, South-East Asia, Australia and the United States, it is now becoming an annual WebRTC conference and event in Beijing.

In attendance was an equal mix of key players in the industry from many prominent WebRTC leaders, software developers, and business speakers. Several names in participation were Agora, Baidu Alibaba, VIPABC, and Intel, marking this event as an important staple of WebRTC in Asia.

The take up of WebRTC rate varies as it depends on the browsers that users are using. For example, most users in China are using Internet Explorer [which does not support WebRTC] while users in Indonesia and Thailand are mostly using Mozilla or Chrome, which are already supporting WebRTC.

While Spain and The United States are claimed to be the emerging WebRTC hotspots, Asia is expected to be the fastest growing market for eCommerce and Internet usage in the next decade. The development of many of these services will happen in Asia, as well, from Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, and India.

Focus in Indonesia : WebRTC Roar in Asia Continues

The Indonesian economy expanded 5.02 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2016 and is expected to grow up to 5.1% in year 2017. Many of the growth is targeted at one sector : e-commerce.

Indonesia is one of the biggest internet users in the world with up to 93,4 million and 75% of which relies on smartphones or gadgets. The Indonesian government also aims to create up to 1.000 technopreneurs with business valuation of 10 billion USD and ecommerce target value of 130 billion USD by the year 2020.

The heavy penetration of internet users in Indonesia is expected to still grow significantly. More and more flexible internet infrastructures, facilities and providers are in constant development in order to offer more online practicality, transactions and overall economic boost.

Here are also other important supporting facts explaining why when it comes to WebRTC and technology developments, Indonesia is the one to watch:

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The Importance of Virtualizing for Services Industry

As e-commerce in Indonesia steps up rapidly, so will the need for these companies to make sure that they’ve embraced communication technologies to the best of their abilities.

Virtualizing for services industry means getting closer to the market and bridging the gap between clients and owners in order to generate business sustainability. This applies to all service areas, including Healthcare, Law Consultation, Education, Accounting, and others.

The only solution that is already happening is in WebRTC. It is no longer the matter of whether a business is using it or not, but rather a matter or how we bring the best of WebRTC into our business. The failure to do so will mean one thing, falling behind and fading in the competition.

When using a messaging platform for work, things become fast and furious (f&f) - too f&f that sometimes you feel that you are losing out of steam to clear the messages. This is one of the fundamental reason why we refuse to use ‘counters’ to indicate the number of unread messages in the first place.

As a principle, we strive to make things organized and simple - We do not want to impose unnecessary burden on you.

So over the past few months, we listened to some awesome feedback and ideas from our users. We took them seriously, discussed intensely and work on some of them really ‘fast and furious’ and now…

Voilaaa! We welcome qiscus’ new updates! New exciting features!

Check this out:

1. Hundreds and hundreds of unread messages? FRET NOT

There can be hundreds of unread messages but you can still zoom in right to the few important messages that are meant for you. With qiscus’ new ‘Mentions’ tab, you can now see the list of important messages which requires your attention.

Why we implement this?

We want to help you focus on what’s important. The rest, read them when you are available.

Click on a mention and you will be brought to the exact topic where your attention is required.

2. No more hassle switching between your 2nd, 3rd or 10th qiscus accounts

You may be amongst the cool group of people who are involved in several companies. Now, with qiscus’ Company List feature, you can now switch between different company accounts so easily that you can do it with your eyes closed - or rather almost.

Why we implement this?

We want to help you better manage all your involvements in a single platform.

Click on Company Name at the top bar and see the list of companies or teams you have.

3. Admins now hold the power to accept, reject or remove users

Say NO to uninvited or unwanted guests in your room. While everyone can add anyone into any room, no one can now be a part of any room/discussions without prior approval from the company Admin.

Why we implement this?

Information leak is the last thing our enterprise clients want. And preventing this is of utmost importance to us.

Company admin holds the power. Well, this comes with great responsibility of course.

For sure, there are more updates coming really soon. Keep a lookout for them. In the meantime, do continue to give us your awesome feedbacks. At the end of the day, we want to help you communicate not just ‘fast and furious’ but ‘focused and safe’.

Did you know that according to inmobi.com, there are 97% mobile users in Indonesia who access chat apps multiple times per day?

Well it is not surprising. Indonesians are some of the most active users of chat apps in the world - 39% of Indonesians ie ~100 million Indonesians prefer chat apps as their main channel of mobile communication over SMS, voice messages, and e-mails.

Why so? Because the habit of messaging is not ingrained in us ever since the inception of SMS.

Based on the survey by Global Web Index in 2014, there are at least three main reasons behind the increasing chat apps’ popularity - And the top reason is, the chat apps are FREE! Indonesian people loves free stuff - ok who doesn’t? ;p

Now analysing deeper on this trend will reveal a few interesting observations: One of which is that people actually choose ‘when to use what’. The LINE app, for example, is mostly used by younger audience who wants to have fun via stickers and multiple ways to engage with their friends or favourite organizations. Whatsapp on the other hand, is used as the main communication tool - albeit for the purpose of communication itself.

Going even deeper, we will see that this ‘messaging habit’ which has become unstoppably contagious in the social world, is not finding its way to the working world as well.

Google, Microsoft and other tech giants are now pushing a whole new working culture - The Future Work.

With the workforce becoming more dispersed and decentralised, a new way of communication is needed to make work communication more efficient and effective. The old way of physical meetings and emails to ‘keep things on track’ will/are no longer the most effective ways of communication.

Especially in a huge country like Indonesia with its central city, Jakarta, being already being the ‘world’s largest parking lot’, the use of chat apps in the working world will be something that ‘only make sense’ for the sake of maintaining a decent level of work productivity. 

Photo Credit: http://www.indoinsideout.com/

Header photo credit: slashgear.com

More and more people use chat apps as their main communication platform these days. According to Statista, 52,9 million mobile phone users in Indonesia accessed OTT chat apps to communicate. That number is projected to grow to 91,6 million users in 2019. How massive is that?

Those huge numbers, then, point to one question: how did chat apps manage to do it?

One of the main reasons is because chat apps have the ability to connect people regardless of where they are actually located. Not to mention that it provides real time interaction without having to meet face-to-face. You’ll have higher chance to get immediate response from other parties.

As the number of chat apps users grow, so does its functions. People now log in to chat apps account not only to chat with their friends, but also to connect with brands, watch content, and browse merchandise.

What were once simple services for exchanging messages, pictures, and videos, have evolved into expansive ecosystem with their own developers, apps, and APIs.

More interestingly, many companies from professional business industry have also jumped on the bandwagon. There are even some chat apps that can work seamlessly in a centralized online workspace. They’re known as office chat apps.

You can send work documents to your co-workers during instant chat session. Office chat apps also allow you to make a virtual conference without having to get all the related people together in a physical meeting room. That way, it’s possible to conduct multiple conversations with different groups of people simultaneously.

Header photo credit: slashgear.com

More and more people use chat apps as their main communication platform these days. According to Statista, 52,9 million mobile phone users in Indonesia accessed OTT chat apps to communicate. That number is projected to grow to 91,6 million users in 2019. How massive is that?

Those huge numbers, then, point to one question: how did chat apps manage to do it?

One of the main reasons is because chat apps have the ability to connect people regardless of where they are actually located. Not to mention that it provides real time interaction without having to meet face-to-face. You’ll have higher chance to get immediate response from other parties.

As the number of chat apps users grow, so does its functions. People now log in to chat apps account not only to chat with their friends, but also to connect with brands, watch content, and browse merchandise.

What were once simple services for exchanging messages, pictures, and videos, have evolved into expansive ecosystem with their own developers, apps, and APIs.

More interestingly, many companies from professional business industry have also jumped on the bandwagon. There are even some chat apps that can work seamlessly in a centralized online workspace. They’re known as office chat apps.

Header photo credit: remag.es

Seeing how “normal” it is to see people use instant messaging as their communication platform on daily basis, you may not expect that there were days when instant messaging was not as popular as it is right now.

The concept of instant messaging has actually emerged since mid 1960s. Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) appeared as one of the first operating systems, which was created at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Computation Center in 1961. It allowed 30 users to log in at the same time and send messages to each other.

As the years went by, instant messaging has evolved a lot. People started to use instant messaging to benefit their business. In fact, tens of millions of the instant messaging accounts were being used for business purposes by employees of companies and other organizations.

The demand was so high that finally in 1998, a new type of instant messaging called Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM) was created by Lotus Software. It was built as a business communications platform, with ensured security and legal compliance. Shortly after that, Microsoft also jumped into the market by releasing Microsoft Exchange, as well as Oracle Corporation with their Oracle Beehive.

In the early 2000s, IT security provider emerged to provide remedies for the risks and liabilities faced by companies who chose to use instant messaging for business purposes. They created new products to be installed in corporate networks for the purpose of archiving, content-scanning, and security-scanning.

It’s safe to say that instant messaging has come a long way, especially in business industry. With such rapid adoption of instant messaging in workplace, the demand for instant messaging safety products began to grow in mid-2000s. Imagine how much the security aspect has developed today. We can use instant messaging for business purposes with more secured privacy.

So, where will instant messaging go next? There’s only one way to know, which is follow the trend to use instant messaging for your business purposes and see how it goes from there. Besides, it will allow you to be more focus on work with minimum distraction.

How many hours do you spend in a day communicating with people via chat apps? Almost 24 hours? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one because apparently 97% mobile in Indonesia access chat apps multiple times per days. There are even 39% people who prefer chat apps as their main channel of mobile communication over SMS, social networking, voice messages, and e-mails.

With such high number of statistic, it’s no wonder that chat app market has been rapidly growing over these past few years. Various chat apps are thriving to always adapt themselves with the never-ending evolution of technology.

Photo credit: Flickr Alvaro Ibanez

Take a look at LINE, they optimize their service by paying attention to the country localization. In Indonesia, LINE personalizes the stickers feature of its app, like when they created cartoon figures during Ramadan. This sort of personalization for Indonesia users leads to personal connection to the app and makes the experience more fun.

Even social media like Facebook didn’t want to be left behind from the chat apps party. In August 2011, they launched a specific chat app that allows you to easily communicate with your Facebook friends without having to open their profile pages first.

The popularity of chat apps has also entered the professional business industry. We all know that communication is the key, especially in a workplace. However, these communications can take many different forms, whether you talk in person, send documents over e-mail, or online through one of those chat apps.

But, don’t you think that sometimes it can be exhausting to use different platforms for every communication form?

Fortunately, now there are chat apps that can work seamlessly in a centralized online workspace. They allow you to both collaborate in open forums and casually talk in private messages. You can also send documents to each other, just like what you usually do via e-mails.