Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group has unveiled its first international Product Innovation Center and Partner Management Center, at its international headquarters in Singapore.
With these new initiatives, the company hopes to enhance customer services and help customers to further their digitalisation journey.
Announcing this at the recently concluded Alibaba Cloud Singapore Summit 2023, the company said the Product Innovation Center will help facilitate future roadmaps for developing more market-specific solutions, and the Partner Management Center will look into local tie-ups to deepen the sharing of technology and domain expertise with partners and customers.
These new initiatives will not only create more job opportunities for local talents in Singapore but will also enhance local collaborations through a new Innovation Accelerator Program to support businesses to expand as the global digital economy continues to grow.
The program will do this by bringing together industry leaders and experts to develop innovative and resilient businesses in Singapore.
Alibaba Cloud will share practical skills and ideas with businesses, and provide ease of access to the latest cloud technologies to customers through the Innovation Accelerator Program.
Each eligible company under the program will receive complimentary training and technical support from Alibaba Cloud and industry experts.
The program will provide the businesses with an opportunity to plug into the dynamic global ecosystem of Alibaba Cloud, which is designed to further empower them to explore and realise their growth ambitions not only locally but also internationally.
This will help them with their digital transformation and innovation journey through upskilling, retraining, and technology upgradation.
Alibaba Group’s Vice President and President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International Business Unit, Selina Yuan, said the setting up of the company’s first international Product Innovation Center and Partner Management Center in Singapore shows “we are committed to continuously supporting global businesses in their digital transformation journey”.
“The new initiatives and the strengthening of our talented workforce further illustrate our support for global customers with ambitions to expand and upgrade their innovation capabilities, while delivering on their sustainability goals,” Yuan added.
Help for 10,000 companies
Over the next three years, Alibaba Cloud will also work with partners to help 10,000 global companies accelerate their sustainability journey.
Businesses in Singapore will be offered a pilot program for Energy Expert to help reduce their carbon footprints.
Energy Expert is a proprietary software-as-a-service sustainability platform launched by Alibaba Cloud in June last year.
It helps to measure, analyse, and manage the carbon emissions of business activities and products while providing actionable insights and energy-saving recommendations to companies in helping them achieve their carbon emission goals.
Focus on cybersecurity
A critical part of Alibaba Cloud’s efforts is focused on enhancing cybersecurity and protection for customers.
In this regard, Alibaba Cloud has recently attained the Cyber Trust (Advocate) mark certification from the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA).
The Cyber Trust (Advocate) mark is the highest tier of the certification. It affirms Alibaba Cloud’s dedication to offering trusted services for businesses to manage and protect their cloud infrastructure.
The Cyber Trust mark is targeted at larger or more digitalised organisations and helps them to communicate their investment in cybersecurity as a competitive edge and to build trust with their customers.
Supporting the growth of companies in Singapore
Alibaba Cloud has been supporting the growth of Singapore companies in a variety of industries.
One of them is the popular outlet Gadget MIX, which sells a variety of electronics and related accessories from 20 shops across the country.
Alibaba Cloud has helped Gadget MIX to build a robust e-commerce presence and digitally transform its retail strategy using innovative cloud solutions.
This has allowed Gadget MIX to improve internal communications, streamline business operations, and seamlessly migrate to the cloud to speed up its business transformation.
Gadget MIX’s CEO, Ray Yue, said the solutions provided by Alibaba Cloud have helped the company lower its total cost of ownership (TCO), “helping us speed up our business transformation efforts”.
“In particular, the deployment of DingTalk has helped us to improve workflow management and team collaborations as well as our business and internal communications.
“Through our digital transformation efforts together with Alibaba Cloud, we have succeeded in creating more value for our retail customers and look forward to future collaborations around digital transformation,” Yue said.
Enhancing the logistics hub scene
With Singapore being a vibrant logistics hub, Alibaba Cloud has also been working with many logistics players to deepen its digital transformation efforts.
One of them is JUSTI Pte Ltd. (JUSTI), a Singapore investment holding company whose investment portfolios include a last-mile delivery operation.
Alibaba Cloud’s solutions have enabled them to digitalise and streamline its logistic networks.
JUSTI’s Managing Director, Li ChaoMing, said Alibaba Cloud’s AI-driven EasyDispatch solution, with an embedded vehicle routing problem (VRP) capability, has improved the company’s field dispatch capabilities and efficiency in real-time.
“By utilising Alibaba Cloud’s technologies, we can have better visibility and control over each step of our delivery chains, such as parcel status tracking, real-time AI route designing and task scheduling. They have greatly reduced our manpower cost and increased customers’ satisfaction,” he said.
