The Future of Connected Commerce - A documentary from Meta
While technology trends have historically originated out of the US, connected retail is a global explosion being led by Asia and filtering out to the rest of the world. In this episode we travel to Asia Pacific where Amer Iqbal, CEO of 5 Ways to Innovate uncovers the changing nature of the industry and how a generation of businesses are transacting in a digital economy. The documentary features interviews with industry experts from Boston Consulting Group, Alibaba and Meta. This documentary was produced as part of Meta Select, an annual program where the social media giant runs training and education for their most valued global customers.
Traditional wisdom over the last few decades has been that technology trends tend to originate out of Silicon Valley and then gradually filter out to the rest of the world over time. And to be fair, many tech trends of the past have followed exactly this pattern: ride hailing apps, the sharing economy, and many of the world’s social media platforms were born in the US before the seeds spread and blossomed in the furthest corners of the globe. In Asia, we saw many industries simply copying and adopting a blueprint of progress from the West, slowly introducing incremental improvements.
But more recently, we’ve seen an interesting dynamic at play across the Asian region - rather than simply following, we’ve seen startups and even corporates generating local, homegrown innovation. It makes a lot of sense - why follow a roadmap that caters to the needs of customers on the other side of the planet? Wouldn’t it be quicker to understand local behaviours and just shortcut to that? This has led to what’s been termed the “leapfrogging effect” - where less mature markets skip over all of the small, incremental steps and jump straight to the latest and greatest.
One example that stands out is in the space of Connected Retail. The imminent disruption of the retail industry has gained huge amounts of press over the last decade. The reality in most of the Western world has been more a case of a long fuse of gradual, incremental change rather than any kind of a big bang. However, the dynamic in Asia has been quite different; We’ve seen the rise of super apps where you can not only hail a ride, but also do your grocery shopping, manage your investments, play games and even book a massage all in a single app - and it’s all connected together with a single digital wallet that does away with the need for a traditional bank account. What we’re seeing is a new commerce experience that’s being designed without the constraints and orthodoxies of the past.
Imagine if you asked a designer who had never shopped online to create an e-commerce experience from scratch. Would the journey look more like the fragmented experience we’ve gotten accustomed to in the West? Or would it be more like the seamless experiences we’re seeing come out of China? Chinese companies like Alibaba’s journey from e-commerce to super app has clearly set the pace for innovation in Asia, and the rest of the world is paying attention.
But the question still remains: are these game changers in Asia actually filtering out to the rest of the world? Is Asia’s connected retail boom actually having an impact and shaping things in the Western world? The trend with much of connected retails seems to be that new features and ideas like superapps are born in Asia, then gradually start to spring up and gain momentum in other parts of the world.
For the first time, we’re seeing a shift in the way global tech trends are disseminated across the world. From superapps to digital wallets, live shopping to leapfrogging, it’s clear that the trend of Connected Retail is being led by Asia. And this shift is opening up new opportunities for businesses anywhere in the world. The result has been a great equalisation, a new age that is allowing traditional retailers, small businesses and entire communities to benefit from the rapidly expanding digital wave.
Amer Iqbal
Founder & CEO, 5 Ways to Innovate
