Before 7 April 2020, manual processes may have been the standard way of running business operations. However, since the start of the circuit breaker, businesses have been forced to undergo digital transformation in order to adapt to new norms. People had no choice but to take their lives online, from working to shopping to ordering food. Likewise, companies have had no choice but to shift their businesses online to survive. This includes adopting digital technology to increase efficiency of daily operations, such as digital procurement and invoicing.
Even though the circuit breaker is behind us, Phase 2 is just the beginning of a digital transformation that all businesses will need to effectuate.
The COVID-19 pandemic is shifting consumer practices more permanently than not. It is unlikely that old consumer behaviour will return. Furthermore, how habits will continue to change remains unpredictable. One thing is for sure – change is inevitable, and businesses will have to be prepared.
The only way businesses can emerge above the pandemic is to make swift and accurate changes when the situation calls for it. Undeniably, going digital will be a surefire way of preparing one’s business for the change that is to come. Digital solutions for business processes will replace the effort previously put into manual processes. By adopting them, businesses can make relevant changes to their operations speedily and at a reduced cost.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, SGeBIZ is partnering with Xero to bring to small businesses the combined benefits of digital procurement, invoicing and payment.
What can EzyProcure by SGeBIZ do for you?
As your business grows, your procurement process will become more complex. Done manually, procurement will be prone to errors, causing financial losses.
Instead, choosing to automate the whole process will reduce the chances of error, increasing productivity and efficiency. EzyProcure does that for 1,000+ satisfied customers, simplifying procurement by automating workflows.
EzyProcure is an easy-to-use digital procurement tool that simplifies procurement for businesses. Its integration with your existing systems ensures that data flow is seamless and effortless on your part. From creating orders to receiving goods to reconciling invoices for payment, EzyProcure automates procurement and is the most convenient way to buy for your business.
At the same time, payment is made easy as EzyProcure is integrated with a digital payment tool, EzyPayment. EzyPayment gives users an interest-free and extended credit term of up to 60 days.
Users are also eligible for funding of up to 80% from the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG).
What can Xero do for you?
Xero is an online accounting software that makes running your e-commerce business simple.
The accounting software is synced with third-party apps for POS, inventory, e-commerce & others. This helps you to easily control stock, manage orders and streamline admin tasks.
Users can get a real-time view of their cash flow, anytime and anywhere. Xero works to import, categorise and reconcile latest bank transactions. The Xero mobile app also allows you to send invoices or even create expense claims on the go. After sending online invoices, users receive updates on when the invoices are opened and get paid faster.
With regards to food and beverage (F&B) enterprises, owners can run payroll, track employees’ working hours, approve leave, and even communicate information in real-time to their accountant, wherever they are.
Xero, therefore, reduces the hassle of physical invoices, making business accounting convenient and easy.
What can the SGeBIZ x Xero partnership do for you?
The partnership ensures that the Accounts Payable (AP) data flow is seamless and safe. This minimizes data entry effort and hence reduces human errors.
With a click of a button, data can automatically be transferred between the two platforms. Reconciled invoices from EzyProcure will be transferred to Xero’s Accounts Payable (AP) Journal. Images of invoices from EzyProcure transferred to Xero will be tagged to the respective AP entry.
This seamless data transfer ensures the secure handling of business records. Additionally, businesses enjoy extensive savings on time and effort required by manual operations.
Conclusion
With SGeBIZ and Xero’s partnership, businesses can make smarter decisions that save cost. Having all benefits of digital procurement, invoicing and payment through the partnership will enable a smoother operational flow as well. More importantly, the partnership will help to increase businesses’ adaptability, giving them the tools to cope with the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.
Technology has practically infiltrated everything in today’s world — from online shopping and e-hailing to vacation planning and ordering takeouts. A whole world of convenience is now yours for the taking with just a tap on your smartphone screen. In this increasingly technology-driven age, industries and companies must, therefore, leverage their companies by adapting and offering state-of-the-art solutions to help consumers enjoy better efficiency and savings. This is especially true in the food and beverage (F&B) industry, which is rapidly becoming one of the most dynamic sectors worldwide.
If you are an F&B business owner, here are seven of the most popular ways you can digitally optimise your business to remain relevant and competitive:
Give your customers the option of ordering takeout in advance, as opposed to coming to your restaurant to make orders and then waiting for their orders to be ready. You can upload e-menus on your website, where customers can select the dishes they like and make payment from there prior to picking up their food at your restaurant. Alternatively, you can also install e-menu iPads at your premise, where customers can tap in their orders. This way, you will be able to minimize errors on mistaken orders and free up your manpower to do more heavy lifting.
Alternatively, if your website is not e-commerce-equipped, you can make e-menus available on your Facebook page and give your customers the option to call or text to order. Customers then can make payment via online transfer or any other cashless payment methods. This, of course, is a manual process that requires manpower and is bound to encounter human errors. However, it offers your customer the option of not having to commute to your restaurant and/or wait around for their food order to be ready.
Food delivery services are all the rage today, thanks to our increasingly busy lifestyles and equally busy traffic. Food delivery services, such as Food Panda, GrabFood and Deliveroo not only offer customers the convenience of selecting their food through an app, but it also gives F&B business owners with smaller premises an opportunity to sell more, should their restaurants be overly crowded to allow for dine-ins or is booked for a sit-in event.
What’s more, food delivery services usually also work in tandem with other service providers, such as Boost and GrabPay, offering attractive offers and discounts that would appeal to food lovers.
Loyalty programs are something that has been proven to work time and time again. Your loyalty program doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as giving away a free drink each time a customer pays using a cashless method, offering a percentage of cashback with a certain amount spent or even a free meal with every 10 meals purchased. You can also do a collaboration with other parties, such as other businesses and credit card companies to come up with more attractive offers.
Loyalty programs come in many different models — both paid and free membership. Paid membership builds a community of advocates with cash upfront, that offers a boost in cash flow. Other than cashback and collaborations, other popular models include referral, where you get rewarded when you refer friends and family, and the voucher program that offers tier rewards for certain amounts spent.
Loyalty programs are a win-win model for everyone involved. It offers value for customers and gives added visibility and edge to F&B businesses.
For large-scale businesses, managing employees can be a full-time job that requires a full-fledged HR team. But for most F&B businesses and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of less than 50 employees, you can always utilise free online software or applications, such as Talenox or Payroll2u.
The functions of these free software and applications may be limited, but for small establishments, basically, all you need to have would be the payroll function, claims calculator, CPF calculator, levy calculator and leave management system. These HR applications and software can also help you streamline other work-related issues, such as e-mailing payslips every month and reminding employees of their leave balance.
Other HR online tools, such as StaffAny also provides onsite time clock, smart timesheet, realtime report and connected workforce for remote work environments.
Modern procurement apps offer an easy to use ordering platform that allows users to maintain full control over F&B outlets through one single application. Businesses can place orders, receive or upload digitized invoices, track expenditures and use analytical insights to observe price changes. In the long run, the analytical insights can help food industry business owners save money and manage daily operations efficiently without unnecessary snags along the way.
As a solution for small and medium business owners, EzyProcure offers an integrated system for a seamless e-commerce experience, which enables both buyers and suppliers to conduct their day to day procurement process in a smooth and timely manner. This convenient platform enables the procurement process to be fully automated, this, in turn, will lead to more credit and better cash flow. EzyProcure’s intuitive user interface and multilingual capabilities also make it easy for users to operate within the platform.
EzyProcure also implements a proprietary optical character recognition (OCR) technology that enables 3-way-matching of your Purchase Order (PO), Goods Receive (GR) and Invoice that saves 70 per cent of the manual effort on AP reconciliation, making work more efficient even for employees. At the end of each month, EzyProcure also produces comprehensive business analytics to assist food industry business owners in making smarter decisions for their establishment. Most importantly, EzyProcure simplifies the procurement process and automates workflow with seamless integration to your backend systems.
The Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) helps Singapore companies grow and transform. This grant supports projects that help you upgrade your business, innovate or venture overseas, under three pillars: Core Capabilities, Innovation and Productivity and Market Access.
The grant funds qualifying project costs namely third party consultancy fees, software and equipment, and internal manpower cost. As announced at Supplementary Budget 2020, the maximum support level will be raised to 80% from 1 April 2020 to 31 December 2020. For enterprises that are most severely impacted by COVID-19, the maximum support level may be raised to 90% on a case-by-case basis.
To qualify for the EDG, you need to:
Find out how you can apply for the EDG here.
Your website is the calling card for your business. It is where existing and potential customers get to see your products and service offerings and see whether they like them, without having to visit your physical store.
In this age of e-commerce, it is optimal to have a website that also allows the option for online ordering/shopping. However, if you are new in the F&B business, take this opportunity to create an attractive digital catalogue on your website. At least, this will give your customers and curious website visitors an idea of what you have to offer for future decision making.
Because of the visual nature of a website and of F&B businesses, having attractive, attention-grabbing images are crucial in the making of an effective website. Take time also to play around with interactive features and short clips that are not too heavy on the bandwidth.
The only way to be relevant these days is by constantly being visible on the social media timeline, mainly on Instagram and Facebook. Keep your content fresh and interesting, and keep your audience updated on every new promotions and menu offering that you have.
Every now and then, do also post contents that will keep your viewers engaged, such as taking part in a trending challenge for a bit of fun. However, always tie back every posting (that doesn’t look immediately relevant) to your products and services. This would make your brand catchier and more memorable. Again, just like with your website, create attractive content with beautiful photos and ingeniously crafted captions.
WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. In its message, it balanced the certainty that the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) will inevitably spread to all parts of the world, with the observation that governments, businesses, and individuals still have substantial ability to change the disease’s trajectory. In this note, we describe emerging archetypes of epidemic progressions; outline two scenarios for the pandemic and its economic effects, and observe some of the ways that business can improve on its early responses.
Since then, large-scale quarantines, travel restrictions, and social-distancing measures drive a sharp fall in consumer and business spending until the end of Q2, producing a recession. Although the outbreak comes under control in most parts of the world by late in Q2, the self-reinforcing dynamics of a recession kick in and prolong the slump until the end of Q3. Consumers stay home, businesses lose revenue and lay off workers, and unemployment levels rise sharply. Business investment contracts and corporate bankruptcies soar, putting significant pressure on the banking and financial system.
Responding to COVID-19
As a business owner living amidst the COVID-19 scare, you can’t predict the market and what is coming in the next quarter of the year or more. However, you can still choose to respond wisely and calmly. Here are seven (7) steps of action to help you as business owners manage the crisis at hand:
1. Protect your employees
The COVID-19 crisis has been emotionally challenging for many people, changing day-to-day life in unprecedented ways. For companies, business as usual is not an option. You can start by drawing up and executing guidelines and policies for your employees.
Some of these policies include providing clear, simple language to local managers on how to deal with COVID-19 (consistent with WHO, CDC, and other health-agency guidelines) while providing autonomy to them so they feel empowered to deal with any quickly evolving situation.
2. Ensure that liquidity is sufficient
Businesses need to define scenarios tailored to the company’s context. For the critical variables that will affect revenue and cost, they can define input numbers through analytics and expert input. Companies should model their financials (cash flow, P&L, balance sheet) in each scenario and identify triggers that might significantly impair liquidity. For each such trigger, companies should define moves to stabilize the organization in each scenario (optimizing accounts payable and receivable; cost reduction; divestments and M&A).
3. Stabilize the supply chain
Companies need to define the extent and likely duration of their supply-chain exposure to areas that are experiencing community transmission, including tier-1, -2, and -3 suppliers, and inventory levels. Most companies are primarily focused on immediate stabilization, given that most Chinese plants are currently in restart mode. They also need to consider rationing critical parts, pre-booking rail/air-freight capacity, using after-sales stock as a bridge until production restarts, gaining higher priority from their suppliers, and, of course, supporting supplier restarts.
4. Build rapport with customers
Companies that navigate disruptions better often succeed because they invest in their core customer segments and anticipate their behaviours. In China, for example, while consumer demand is down, it has not disappeared—people have dramatically shifted toward online shopping for all types of goods, including food and product delivery. Companies should invest in online as part of their push for omnichannel distribution; this includes ensuring the quality of goods sold online. Customers’ changing preferences are not likely to go back to pre-outbreak norms.
5. Practise the crisis-control plan
Many businesses do not invest time in understanding what it takes to plan for disruptions until they are in one. This is where roundtables or simulations are invaluable. Companies can use tabletop simulations to define and verify their activation protocols for different phases of response (contingency planning only, full-scale response, other). Simulations should clarify decision owners, ensure that roles for each top-team member are clear, call out the “elephants in the room” that may slow down the response, and ensure that, in the event, the actions needed to carry out the plan are fully understood and the required investment readily available.
6. Demonstrate purpose
Businesses are only as strong as the communities of which they are a part of. Companies need to figure out how to support response efforts—such as by providing money, equipment, or expertise. For example, a few companies have shifted production to create medical masks and clothing.
7. Take advantage of special relief packages
Times are tough for businesses everywhere. In light of this, also to heed the Singapore Government’s plan to assist businesses hit by the coronavirus outbreak, SGeBIZ is offering a one-time COVID-19 relief package to support F&B businesses in Singapore. This relief package is targeted to address cash flow issues by offering a 60-day “credit ready” solution for FREE. This “buy now, pay later” offer is free of charge for the first three months and only valid for the first 500 applicants.
Learn more on our COVID-19 relief package
Over the first and second quarter of 2020, many businesses have struggled to survive, as the COVID-19 pandemic came to challenge what used to be a comfortable norm for many. With the subsequent phases of Movement Control Order (MCO); which started on 18 April 2020, and the need to adapt to new social distancing norms, businesses are finding it more and more difficult to just stay afloat.
A March 2020 survey by an online home services platform, Recommend.my, have found that 68.9 per cent of local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have suffered more than 50 per cent drop in business within one week of the movement control order (MCO). With a significant income loss and slower growth prospects in the next coming months, it’s high time for businesses to pull themselves up by the bootstraps to look for ways to minimise cost. For many, this often calls for a reformation in their procure-to-pay processes.
If you are a business owner who still adheres to the traditional way of conducting your procurement process, you would probably agree that this manual process is tedious and time-consuming. Worst of all, it requires more manpower and is bound to experience loss due to human error. By reformatting your procurement processes and adopting a one-stop digital procure-to-pay system, you will save time, money and manpower, making your business more efficient and profitable.
EzyProcure — a procure-to-pay platform by SGeBIZ — offers an integrated system for a seamless e-commerce experience, which enables both buyers and suppliers to conduct their day to day procurement process in a smooth and timely manner. This convenient platform enables the procurement process to be fully automated, which in turn will lead to more credit and better cash flow.
EzyProcure offers the following features to allow for faster and smoother procurement process:
1. Multilingual, omnichannel access
Available in English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, on Web and App (iOS / Android).
2. Control mechanisms
Closed-loop environment with pre-approved suppliers, access control rights, approval matrix and budget control.
3. Inventory management for food industry business owners
Ability to auto-replenish stock levels upon goods receiving, with added capabilities for stock-taking.
4. EzyPayment
Linked to EzyPayment, which offers Accounts Payable automation and interest-free credit for your payables.
5. AI-Driven Optical Character Recognition
Ability to read invoices and pick up data discrepancies without need for pre-loaded templates.
6. Management Information System Reporting
Detailed analytics of procurement data, sense-made into food cost data, goods receiving data and many more, for smarter decision making.
EzyProcure’s intuitive UI with multilingual capabilities is able to cater to ground needs. It brings the online shopping experience into B2B. EzyProcure’s competencies in systems integration also allow it to interoperate with the food industry business owner’s backend systems for seamless data flow, eliminating data entry work. In addition to that, EzyProcure’s comprehensive business analytics grants visibility into spending needs and forecasts, for smarter business decision making.
Maximise Your Cash Flow with EzyPayment
As a business owner, cash flow is king. Another important step in digitising your business is by signing up for a digitalised payment platform that offers hassle-free, readily available credit and will enhance your cash flow. EzyPayment is all this and more — it is the only payment facility that brings you quality credit at a lower cost. What more, you will also get to enjoy early payment programs while unlocking your cashflow interest-free!
Here are what you get when you sign up for EzyPayment:
1. Up to 60-day interest-free credit
With EzyPayment, buyers can now optimise their cash flow by extending their credit terms. EzyPayment is the only payment facility that brings SMEs quality credit at a lower cost and allows business owners to enjoy early payment programs while unlocking cashflow interest-free.
EzyPayment offers seamless integration with accounting systems such as Xero, that allows business owners to make payment to suppliers from their invoices.
2. Shorter payment time to suppliers
Delayed payment to your supplier may incur some additional late charges that are totally unnecessary. EzyPayment solves this problem by enabling suppliers to receive payment within two to five days of invoice to reduce credit risk and recourse. Being able to offer timely payment to your suppliers will also enhance your working relationship with them in the long run.
3. Automatic early payment discount factoring
Does it seem fair that additional fees are incurred when payments are late yet early payments don’t get rewarded? With EzyPayment, early payment discounts can be negotiated and included in every transaction. This means that you will be able to enjoy better savings on payables.
Business owners can enjoy probably the lowest transaction fee in town for F&B supplies and rental payments.
4. Secured transaction
Enjoy peace of mind when you make transactions using EzyPayment, as it conforms to the highest security, stability and integrity standards that are demanded by banks. EzyPayment is also PCI DSS-compliant and is subject to annual audits.
5. Easy accounts reconciliation
EzyPayment automatically generates real-time payment and remittance advice based on the invoice level to simplify the payment reconciliation work process. This way, you will always be able to stay on top of all your business transactions anywhere, anytime.
Conclusion
Like it or not, COVID-19 has become a digital catalyst that propels business owners to step out of their comfort zones and embrace the changing business landscape. Determining whether or not your business will sink or swim all depends on whether or not you are willing to embrace change and make that digital shift. Like all changes, this may be a little bit uncomfortable at first, but once it’s done, you’ll be glad you did it at all.