Beyo Global 2023 Round-up

Looking back on 2023, it was a year of personal and professional growth. This reflection might be a bit later than usual due to my year-end travels but it’s better late than never!

I found myself embracing a slower rhythm in 2023. That gave me more time for myself, for my family and friends. (Un)Surprisingly, it also did wonders for my health (e.g. fewer migraines and less anxiety). I also felt way more relaxed and present when I was with my parents.

My year kicked off in Southeast Asia (specifically Malaysia and Bali). In those few months, apart from getting to spend some quality with family and fostering closer and stronger friendships, I was also working with clients from all over the world, thanks to remote work. Lots of different time zones, but it worked out.

*Photos that representing some of the countries we (my clients and I) work on for international growth in 2023, me giving a talk and my upcoming book.*

Market-specific growth

Most of my work for the last few years has been helping businesses in expanding their global reach and for some reason, they rarely include growing their UK market. This wasn’t a planned strategy but rather a consequence of clients gravitating towards markets outside the UK. When I was contacted by The Washington Post, I was pleased to hear that they wanted to focus on expanding their international customer base, particularly looking into having a better and deeper understanding of UK readers to provide them with a relevant, effective and engaging experience. Ultimately, it wants to identify opportunities for increased readership and subscribers in the UK.

Another new client that I started working with this year was Bumble, the popular international dating app. The business identified Japan as one of the countries with a big growth opportunity for them in 2024 but recognised that they might have limited knowledge about the market. We first did a comprehensive analysis of the present Japanese dating app landscape and ecosystem, evaluating competitive dynamics and identifying trends. It enabled us to understand the main players in the Japanese dating app space and the opportunity for Bumble to carve a distinctive niche in this market.

This analysis reminded me of the innovation growth strategy project I was working with Spotify in 2022, where we delved into the success of a Chinese audio streaming player (a market that they have no intention of launching) about the key drivers of their success, their business model and funnel strategy, their product and value proposition and main features, how their propositions and products surfaced, their UX and visual strategies and how they engage with and facilitate between their customers (listeners, creators, fans and providers).

Both of these Japanese and Chinese business analyses were fascinating in many ways. They demonstrated that, you can learn a lot by looking closely into the models and strategies of successful businesses in other markets (especially those you’re not familiar with in Asia), it fosters innovation and can elevate your business, to stay ahead even if you're not launching in those markets.

Returning to the Bumble initiative, we also set out to understand the cultural norms associated with dating apps in Japan. This involved assessing user experiences against current dating apps available in the market (e.g. identifying gaps or missing features that are important to Japanese users), gauging perception of Bumble among Japanese users, evaluating whether Bumble's existing product (including its features and content) aligns with the preferences and expectations of the Japanese consumer, identifying areas where improvements may be needed and investigating how Bumble's unique proposition (e.g. WMTFM - Women make the first move) aligns or doesn't align with the current dating culture and perceptions in Japan.

The output of this not only gave us a clear indication of what we should and shouldn’t do when defining Bumble’s future Japan strategies in various aspects (many efforts that Bumble initially intended to invest in had been discarded since they proved to be unimportant), but it also helped us to identify unearthed areas requiring further exploration.

In the early part of this year, I continued to collaborate closely with Spotify’s Growth team in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. This round, we looked into growing their French-speaking African markets with the main focus being Côte d'Ivoire (since it’s one of the biggest markets in this region for music and it has a higher user penetration than, for example, Cameroon). With the same team, we also explored avenues for growth in Morocco (being the top three of their MENA markets in terms of MAUs and subscribers).

Continuing a multi-year partnership with Spotify’s Eastern Europe Growth team, we concentrated on their Polish market for the third consecutive year. Since our initial collaboration in 2019, the market has shown substantial growth in Monthly Active Users (MAUs) and subscriptions. Our objective was to unlock further growth by understanding a specific cohort audience - enthusiasts of a unique music genre in Poland which plays an important role in its music landscape. The deep dive aimed to help us define growth strategies and initiatives tailored to capture this untapped audience in the Polish market.

Close to the end of the year, I found myself en route to Saudi Arabia alongside the Spotify Global Premium Strategy team. The country, a highly religious society with an ongoing reformation, makes it a complicated, yet interesting market. To be able to inform a growth strategy in this market confidently, we needed to unpack Saudi Arabian users’ approach to audio/music and perceptions of value, as well as to identify white spaces to inform the development of a localised Premium proposition that drives willingness-to-pay. This market is highly complex (replete with many conflicting observed behaviours).

To make sure that we have a more holistic understanding of the people, the society and its culture so that we don’t make inaccurate conclusions, talking to the targetted audiences is no longer sufficient. The participants would tell us what they do or don’t do, how they think and to a certain extent, why they behave or think in such a way. But, we were often left wondering about the roots of their unique mentalities and their occasionally conflicted behaviours. Only by experiencing first-hand local cultural immersions, having multiple conversations with locals about the culture (outside research scope and settings) and exploring the interpretation of Islamic teachings in this country enabled us to piece everything together for a more complete view.

Growth with new business propositions (across diverse markets)

With the Spotify Premium Proposition Strategy team, we explored a new proposition to potentially enable the business to unlock untapped audiences globally. This project spanned across multiple markets which show the most potential, covering all continents. We used various methods, insights and data to uncover the potential of this proposition. We delved into understanding who this proposition might serve, how they could be served with this new proposition, as well as how it can be surfaced for maximum impact.

New business proposition venture

The year 2023 was also about working with Admiral Pioneer (a venture entity within the Admiral Group, a prominent British financial services company, with the aim of seeding, launching and scaling new businesses to grow and diversify Admiral in the future). There were two parts of my engagement with them this year.

Among Admiral Pioneer’s four ongoing ventures, one had yet to realise its full potential. When I first joined them, this particular team had just completed a hackathon which spurred excitement about a new proposition idea with the hope that it would help to grow the existing business. The first part of my role with the venture company was to advocate a strategic pause, prompting and challenging the team to revisit the fundamental questions about the real problems they aimed to solve and the unmet needs they could address. This means a return to basics, researching the trend and targetted conversations with the proposed proposition's relevant audience. The outcome clearly showed that the industry wasn’t ready for the proposed innovation, as there was no evident problem to solve and an unclear value proposition. Instead of blindly investing money and people's efforts into continuing developing the proposition, the decision was, therefore, to put it to a halt. The business then focuses on facilitating a team restructuring, reviewing the existing business to solidify its offerings, refining customer experience and redefining brand proposition. Anticipation now surrounds the forthcoming soft launch of the revamped business in the new year.

The second part of my engagement with Admiral Pioneer involved conceiving and developing a new business proposition, starting from ground zero. Throughout the process, we did not have the luxury of having a big team working with us, just a lean team of two to three of us. We progressed from ideation (from zero ideas to thirty ideas to four to one) to a refined concept through various research and analysis (e.g. market exploration, competitor analysis, research interviews, technology landscape evaluation, feasibility analysis and market validation). We ended the year with clear insights from research, pinpointing two primary target audiences and the problems they face against our potential proposition and their feedback on our pretotypes. Looking ahead, the roadmap for the new year encompasses team expansion with requisite skills, passion cultivation, MVP creation and the identification of optimal distribution channels based on the lean canvas. I look forward to continuing this journey with Admiral Pioneer.

Trustee and advisory role

In the year before, I spent some time advising start-ups on their business models, value propositions, customer/client experiences and overall growth strategies. In 2023, I continued this effort, with a refined focus on companies that are ready to launch in new markets or senior management teams seeking advice on their international strategies (emphasising cultural nuances and holistic global market considerations).

During the latter part of the year, my engagements extended to close dialogues with charities for trustee roles and organisations for non-executive positions. I’ve been taking my time to find the right match as it’s important for both myself and them for all the obvious reasons to ensure a mutually beneficial partnership that fosters impactful, sustainable and gratifying experiences. This is something I’ll be carrying forward to 2024 - finding organisations whose needs align with my expertise, skills and experiences so I can offer valuable insights and make meaningful contributions, regardless of the format of the support - as a consultant, advisor, board member or non-exec director. I’m also keen to offer my time (pro bono) for a trustee role to a charity where my passion aligns with the cause.

Talks and guest lectures

In 2023, I welcomed the opportunity to give a guest lecture for the double Master’s programme, Global Innovation Design MSc/MA programme, jointly conducted by Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. Focused on cross-cultural insights and design, this experience was the closest I got to academia after completing my PhD more than a decade and a half ago. I very much enjoyed giving the lecture and the discussions I had with the students. It is certainly something that I’d be doing more in 2024.

Another speaking engagement involved addressing developers and tech experts at Pixel Pioneers. I can code (kind of) but my programming skill is rather minimal.. Most of the talks went right over my head. I couldn’t help but wonder how the attendees would react to my presentation, which had no lines of code. But, it seems that my concern was unnecessary. My talk was well-received:

💬 “Your talk was enlightening — really enjoyed it”

💬 “Thanks for this interesting point of view”

💬 “I took lots of learnings from Chui Chui’s talk”

💬 “This was a fantastic talk with many takeaways to take back to the team.”

I was pleased that my talk resonated with the audience. Developers play a pivotal role in delivering localised experiences for local users or customers. My aim, therefore, was to raise awareness about the significance of their contribution and offer insights into the areas where they can contribute to the successful launch and growth of their international markets.

While I had to decline some speaking invitations in 2023 due to various reasons, I am keen to embrace more opportunities in 2024

Exciting news - BOOK LAUNCH IN 2024!

In the second half of the year, I started my book-writing journey (with my amazing book-writing buddy). I didn't set out to write a book. It started with a chat with a friend pondering the transitions we might make professionally after dedicating over a decade and a half to what we've been doing professionally.

A big part of my working life has been about helping companies to have a holistic understanding of a market, its people and its context. I've been using this approach as one of the key foundations when helping businesses with their international launch & growth strategies. It's about helping businesses navigate the cultural complexities. It's my niche, my speciality.

In the past 15 years, I've planned, conducted, led or overseen countless international user research in different forms, for clients in various industries to achieve different objectives especially to help businesses succeed in global expansion & growth strategy (e.g. to prepare for a new market launch, to identify growth opportunities for an existing market). Working across more than 50 markets, I've covered some markets several times for the same or different clients as what's important about a market (e.g. Japan) for one client (e.g. Spotify) might not be relevant to businesses in different industries (e.g. Asana, Ritz-Carlton). I often find myself creating guidelines and coaching teams in running international research.

I thought I should find a way to gather, consolidate and distil this wealth of experience into a valuable resource so that others could be inspired. I’ve, therefore, decided to encapsulate it in a book format, providing practical guidelines and tips for international cross-cultural research as it is a key path to global business success.

I’ve my first draft ready. It went through thorough reviews by two brilliant technical editors. I’m excited for the next stages and also to finally see the book published. I hope it’ll be well-received, resonate well and prove valuable to readers for years to come.

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Heartfelt Gratitude for 2023: A Year of Change and Growth

In many ways, 2023 certainly did not feel the same as any other year for me personally and professionally. All in all, it has been a rewarding year. I extend my gratitude to everyone that I’ve had the pleasure of working with or crossing paths. I’m also grateful for the relationships and friendships we curated. Thank you.

Entering 2024, I have a feeling that it will involve even more significant changes. Change is a good thing and it’s good for us. I’m embracing it with openness and positivity. Hope our paths will cross one way or the other in 2024. I anticipate the opportunities and growth that lie ahead. Thank you, and here’s to the exciting journey ahead in 2024!