Analyse Podcast

Join industry leaders Sapna Chadha, Vice President at Google for Southeast Asia, Florian Hoppe from Bain & Company, and Cassie Wu of Temasek as they celebrate the e-Conomy SEA report's 10th anniversary. They discuss Southeast Asia’s surprising digital economy growth, now valued at $300 billion, and its position as the most AI-curious region globally. The guests explore the rise of video commerce, the shift towards sustainable profitability, and future visions for an inclusive AI landscape. Insights into resilience through crises round out this enlightening dialogue.

Arnaud Frade, Managing Partner at Mesh Advisory and author of The Sentient Startup, delves into the transformative role of AI in entrepreneurship. He introduces the concept of sentient startups where AI acts as a co-founder, not just a tool. Frade discusses organizational challenges causing AI project failures and the importance of integrating Machine Resources alongside Human Resources. He emphasizes the need for an ethical approach to AI governance, ensuring accountability and human engagement, while envisioning a collaborative future where AI enhances business operations.

Fresh out of the studio, Ralph Haupter, President & CRO, Small Medium Enterprises and Channels at Microsoft, joins us to explore how Microsoft is empowering 400 million small and medium businesses globally across 56 counties through a partner-first strategy that combines platform standardization with deep specialization. He shares his career journey spanning over 20 years at Microsoft, from running Europe to leading Greater China, building Asia's geographical operations in Singapore, and eventually taking on global SME strategy. Ralph explains that Microsoft's unique advantage lies in being a platform company at its finest, offering a complete technology stack from productivity to infrastructure, security, and applications—all with core AI integration—while relying on a specialized partner ecosystem to deliver local expertise and support. He highlights how partners are creating entirely new business models on agentic AI while emphasizing the four critical partnership moments from transaction to ongoing support that most companies neglect. Closing the conversation, Ralph shares what great looks like for Microsoft. “The partner program for us is a place where we want to have expertise for our customers. The only way to make that happen is to standardize on portfolio and standardize on offering.If you don’t provide standardized offers — if the experience in Word, for example, is different in one country than in another — you can’t build an ecosystem that helps partners scale with expertise. I call that a platform company at its finest.We have the full assortment — from the productivity world to infrastructure, security, and applications. And if you’re a small or medium enterprise, the last thing you want is to have four meetings with four people, serving four different types of coffee to four different vendors, just to get a full-stack solution for your business.” - Ralph HaupterEpisode Highlights: [00:00] Quote of the Day by Ralph Haupter [00:54] Ralph's 20+ year Microsoft career journey from Europe to China to Global [02:19] Ralph's Experience in Microsoft Greater China [04:24] Giving space to local country leaders [06:16] Career advice: Get out of comfort zone [08:02] Microsoft's 400 million SME customer opportunity [11:00] AI accessibility for small business competitiveness [13:09] Satya's vision: Empower every organization globally [15:00] Microsoft as AI platform company strategy [17:24] Standardization enables partner ecosystem at scale [21:22] Security partners drive consultative innovation [25:15] Full stack portfolio simplifies SME technology [28:00] Training investment for partners and customers [32:00] Four critical partnership moments: Sales to support [35:00] Local partner presence matters by geography [40:36] Scale requires clarity, simplicity, and standards [42:36] Global Leadership Lessons: Learning from positive performance signal deviations [45:22] Customers should ask partners for expertise [47:34] What does Great Look Like for Microsoft SME & Channel Globally [48:00] ClosingProfile: Ralph Haupter, President and CRO, Small Medium Enterprises and Channel (SME&C), Microsoft LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphhaupter/Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format.

Yana Fry, creator of Yana TV, interviews Bernard Leong, CEO of Dorje AI, as they celebrate a major milestone in his podcasting journey. Bernard shares his 12-word life philosophy and delves into how his theoretical physics background informs his pragmatic idealism in business. The discussion covers key strategic insights for leaders on digital transformation and AI adoption, alongside the challenges of transitioning from audio to video. Bernard also reveals an exciting rebrand as they aim for a global audience, emphasizing the importance of listening in leadership.

Ling Hai, President of Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East, and Africa at Mastercard, dives into the evolution of digital payments and the role of stablecoins and AI. He shares insights on Mastercard’s strategy to bridge traditional finance with DeFi through innovative solutions. Ling highlights the remarkable open-loop transit systems in Asia and discusses how AI is enhancing fraud prevention and customer experience. With a focus on trust and inclusivity, he outlines Mastercard's vision as the digital economy's trusted operating system.

Yuying Deng, Co-founder and CEO of Esevel, transitioned from corporate law to tech entrepreneurship, launching her platform to tackle remote work IT challenges during the pandemic. She discusses the importance of a mindset shift from HQ-centric views, emphasizing that talent exists globally and should be nurtured regardless of location. Yuying shares invaluable lessons on resilience, the need for early customer feedback, and how to effectively hire and promote remote teams. Her vision for Esevel is to become the top solution for global IT operations, enhancing workplace inclusivity.

Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President at Confluent, shares his journey from Oracle to mastering data streaming. He delves into how real-time data is crucial for AI success, highlighting its role in integrating disparate systems securely. Kamal discusses Confluent's evolution and its significance in India's massive payment infrastructure, enabling efficient AI solutions. He offers insights on navigating data fragmentation and the importance of open-source technologies. From healthcare innovations to the future of payments, his vision shows how data streaming is transforming enterprise landscapes.

Jing Yang, Asia Bureau Chief at The Information, dives deep into the evolving landscape of Chinese startups targeting global markets. She discusses ByteDance's shift in strategy and its surpassing revenue compared to Meta, yet trailing in profits. The importance of AI and robotics in this transformation is highlighted, along with Zhang Yiming's increased investments in AI. Jing also reveals how Chinese entrepreneurs now face a critical choice: to build for China or the global market, emphasizing the challenges and competitive pressures they encounter.

Craig Wiley, Senior Director of Product Management at Databricks, leads the conversation on the crucial link between data and AI in accelerating ML development. He shares eye-opening statistics: 85% of AI evaluations are done solely by engineers. Craig dives into the evolution from classical ML to GenAI, revealing tools like Agent Bricks for better evaluations. Customer success stories from Suncorp and AstraZeneca illustrate the real-world impact of Mosaic AI. He champions the need for trustable and systematic model evaluations in enterprise AI.

"I think the biggest trap to potentially fall into is, "Hey, it's moving so fast, so much is changing. Let's just wait it out." Completely the wrong approach. You just gotta get started." Nick Eayrs from Databricks "As tech people within the shipping industry, how do we explain, how do we make it accessible to all our users? So that's where we came up with the idea of a data supermarket, with in mind really the target of enabling self-service for our business. So by giving the analogy of a supermarket, it was much easier at the beginning to explain our business." - Simon Fassot from Hafnia Fresh out of the studio, Nick Eayrs, Vice President of Field Engineering for Asia Pacific and Japan at Databricks, and Simon Fassot, General Manager and Head of Global Data and Analytics at Hafnia, join us to explore how data intelligence is transforming enterprise AI across diverse industries in Asia. Nick explained the fundamental distinction between general intelligence and data intelligence - emphasizing how enterprises gain competitive advantage by training AI on their proprietary data rather than public knowledge. Nick showcased customer success stories including Standard Chartered Bank and TechComBank and shared his perspectives on how senior executives can take advantage of AI by moving fast rather than wait and see. Last but not least, Nick offered what great would look like for Databricks in Asia Pacific and Japan in serving their customers. Adding the lens of the customer, Simon shared Hafnia's transformation from legacy SQL Server systems to a unified Databricks architecture serving their global shipping operations and elaborated on how the company is breaking down silos with their data supermarket and "Marvis" AI copilot for maritime operations based on retrieval augmented generation. This is Part 1 from Databricks Data + AI Event Singapore.  Episode Highlights: [00:00] QOTD by Nick Eayrs and Simon Fassot [00:49] Introduction: Nick Eayrs from Databricks [03:32] Customer obsession means deeply understanding their business context [05:22] Data intelligence versus artificial general intelligence explanation begins [06:42] AI trained on your data creates competitive advantage [08:17] Only 15% of companies have correct AI infrastructure ready [11:17] Don't wait for AI perfection, just get started now [12:30] Agent Bricks simplify AI development using natural language [13:49] Standard Chartered Bank cybersecurity use case with SIEM [16:22] TechCom Bank in Vietnam customer brain with 12,000 customer attributes [18:32] Shared responsibility model for ethical AI deployment [25:24] Asia Pacific psychology focuses on future, not past [26:28] Most important question: How do you get started? [30:18] What does great look like for Databricks? [33:16] Introduction: Simon Fassot from Hafnia [35:18] How Hafnia transformed to full cloud architecture centralizes data through Databricks [36:28] Self-service access needed for 300 onshore, 4000 vessel employees [37:00] Three user types: operations, business intelligence, domain experts and Use Cases for Hafnia [41:32] Unity catalog controls data quality for AI cases [42:21] Two-phase Gen AI: ingest unstructured, then consume data [44:25] How to implement Generative AI: One bad AI answer loses all user trust [45:31] How reports in Hafnia use RAG embedded in workflows [46:47] Data supermarket analogy simplifies self-service for business [48:39] Marvis AI personalizes Gen AI within company context [49:46] Neo4j partnership adds graph capabilities to ecosystem [53:33] DNA Port platform unifies scattered dashboards and applications [54:22] Databricks enables focus on business value over operations Profiles: Nick Eayrs, Vice President of Field Engineering, Asia Pacific & Japan at Databricks LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-eayrs/ Simon Fassot, General Manager and Head of Global Data and Analytics at Hafnia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-fassot-68b95135/ Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast. Analyse Asia Main Site: https://analyse.asia Analyse Asia Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1kkRwzRZa4JCICr2vm0vGl Analyse Asia Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/analyse-asia-with-bernard-leong/id914868245 Analyse Asia LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/analyse-asia/ Analyse Asia X (formerly known as Twitter): https://twitter.com/analyseasia Sign Up for Our This Week in Asia Newsletter: https://www.analyse.asia/#/portal/signup Subscribe Newsletter on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7149559878934540288