AI = Actionable Insight
Spearheading meaningful change through its ET Brains and advocating cooperation via the Tech for Change initiative, Alibaba Cloud is empowering progressive perceptions across a vast swathe of industries
Trade finance will be a vital tool in helping advance ASEAN trade growth, both externally and within the region. And this is where the support of local banks is invaluable.
Yet, to help the region reach its trading potential, trade finance requires significant technological advancement. Even from a processing basis, digitalisation – as opposed to paperbased systems – will be of enormous benefit to trade both within and beyond Southeast Asia.
Trade finance has already benefitted from the evolution from paper to electronic communication, and digital solutions have the potential to enhance speed, efficiency, transparency and security across the supply chain. Yet, the electrification of trade still has a long way to go.
Digitalisation will also make collaboration across the global banking network easier, with the information generated within the trade ecosystem more readily available and transmittable. And digitalising trade and data can improve the ability to detect fraudulent activity that may not be as easily exposed through paper. Along with headline-grabbing technologies such as blockchain, optical character recognition (OCR) is a solution that is increasingly being applied by banks to enhance documentation verification – helping to streamline previously inefficient processes such as exchanging and ratifying bills of lading by reading data from a physical document.
Trade partnerships – the key to success
Digitalising processes is key if Southeast Asia is to reach its potential as an economic powerhouse for global growth.
Banks throughout the region are highly receptive to new technologies – recognising the importance of adaptation and innovation in order to sufficiently support their clients’ evolving needs. But the volume and pace of new technological developments can leave many local banks facing challenges, both in resources and in understanding the latest digital trends.
Given this, local banks can harness
the advanced technological capabilities, as well as expertise and connections, of specialist global providers through non-compete partnerships. Harnessing the technology, capacity and expertise of global players will ensure that the financial supply chain can keep up with the rapidly increasing volume and complexity of the physical supply chain. It will also bring the added benefit of having a globally experienced intermediary to navigate a trading process that can generate difficulties given the number of counterparties and requirements involved.
Asia is rapidly becoming the most resilient global region with respect to growth. And, with the help of technological advancements and the guidance of correspondent banks, the region could well find the optimal way to enhance trade via a banking system that will need to cope with the coming increase in demand.
The technological landscape has exploded in recent times, as the exponential rise of startups, innovation and R&D have pushed Industry 4.0 into full swing.
With this has come a new wave of technological glitz and glamour.
Be it digital transformation, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality or machine learning, technology has developed a kind of sexiness; an exotic, mysterious aura.
Not so long ago, cloud computing was painted with thishis same brush.
Having slipped out of the limelight in recent years, paving the way forr the likes of blockchain, 5G andd biometrics to take centre stage,ge, cloud computing has takenken a behind the scenes role in facilitating transformation.
To underestimatete its potential, however,r, would be naïve. In fact, havingaving quietly consolidated,ed, cloud computing can noww be considered as a behemoth technology empowering enterprise success.
“At Alibaba Cloud, we believe that cloud is the key technology in the digital era,” states Selina Yuan, Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence International.
“The scope for transformation is almost unimaginable. We have seen so many business practices founded in the cloud that have rocked established industries, constantly changing how we learn, work, shop, travel and consume media.”
An industry veteran with more than 20 years’ y experience in the field,fie cloud computing has become beco Yuan’s passion for thisth very reason.
“Instead of thinking thi whether or not they need to embraembrace the cloud, companies compan thriving in the era of digital transformation transfo are already thinking th how they can use it to optimise their business,” she continues. “It is by thinking outside the box that we believe the cloud can sooth bigger, organisation-wide pain-points rather than just siloed IT issues.”
Thinking big
As its name might suggest, Alibaba Cloud has been the perfect workplace platform for Yuan’s cloud-centric ambitions and passion to flourish.
The cloud computing arm of one of the world’s largest ecommerce companies and a top three sectorbased service provider (according to Gartner), the firm has become a market leader in one-stop shop solutions to face and tackle digitalisation challenges across multiple sectors.
A core part of this ever-growing portfolio comes in the form of the Alibaba Cloud ET Brains.
From its ET City Brain, ET Medical Brain and ET Industrial brain to the ET Environment Brain and ET Agricultural Brain, each of these separate,
specialised entities serve a similar purpose as ultra-intelligent AI platforms solving complex business and social problems.
“They are powered by new, advanced technologies,” Yuan affirms. “The Brains are already driving global breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and machine learning – their capabilities offer users multi-dimensional perceptions, global insights, real-time decision-making and continuous evolution under complex situations.
“In turn, users become able to rapidly form knowledge-based, optimised decisions very quickly.”
For Alibaba Cloud, the Brains are all about combining its expertise across cloud, artificial intelligence, and other fields to create actionable insights – Yuan’s alternate definition for AI.
“Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is a key focus for us – it’s much more than just a buzzword,” she continues. “We’re not developing solutions for the sake of it. We are more interested in how we can apply technologies like AI to solve real, complex and urgent problems.
“These can range from how emergency service vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines can better negotiate and navigate heavily congested urban roads, to providing actionable insights for traditional industries such as manufacturing, allowing them to be more environmentally friendly, for example.”
Empowering perceptions
The company’s deployment of its ET Agricultural Brain in China stands out as a particularly interesting case study.
Collecting reams of processed data from its enterprise clients, it has developed machine learningempowered analytics technologies to create game-changing insights for the region’s farming community.
In essence, farmers have been provided with the necessary visual recognition and realtime environmental monitoring technologies to track the growth and conditions of crops and livestock via smartphone applications.
“Most companies are already sitting on a huge amount of data, but making intelligent use of the amassed data is even more important if they want to maximise the opportunities that technologies present,” Yuan adds.
As the conversation continues, the Group Vice President is quick to iterate that there are not many regions or industries that cannot be optimised by technology, the ET Agricultural Brain standing as a prime example of how traditional industries are being transformed with new-age technologies.
Such transitions have not been entirely straightforward, however, with a commitment to customary practices and conventional operations often posing as the biggest challenge in terms of adoption.
Yuan explains: “Our biggest hurdle comes from the traditional enterprise mindset towards new technology. The scalablity, flexiblity and agility of public cloud is undebatable, although it still takes time for the larger enterprises to truly recognise these competitive advantages.
“As we have seen from the early days of technology, change management is often the biggest hurdle to overcome. On the plusside, however, when the benefits are explained and change justified, people are more willing to embrace it.
“Bear in mind too that the way that the internet – and now, cloud – has revolutionsed life as we know it in the last two decades, people are generally more open to change; they see change as inevitable not just to keep ahead, but to keep up.”
Advocating collaboration
An increased willingness for collaboration has come in tandem with this openness to change, a second area that Alibaba Cloud is championing via its Tech for Change initiative.
Launched at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, it acts as a call out for ideas and joint efforts between enterprises, startups, young entrepreneurs and alike, encouraging them to work together to tackle global social and humanitarian challenges in areas such as education, economic
development and the environment through technology.
“The Tech for Change initiative is all about bringing together creativity and innovation to tackle critical problems and challenges faced by humanity,” replies Yuan when asked about this initiative.
“By making technology more accessible and affordable, we can inspire creativity and nurture the next generation of game-changers who will make our world a better place.”
As part of this pledge, Alibaba Cloud is providing the cloud infrastructure needed to transform businesses globally, offering partners access to its technology expertise, global computing resources and talent development programmes.
These include Create@Alibaba Cloud, a global scheme focused on accelerating business success for startups, and Tianchi, its AI competition platform.
And while these tools, and indeed
Alibaba’s role, are particularly proactive in this space, Yuan’s concluding statements resonate with one point: that the company can’t drive transformation alone.