Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts (Section 4: Digital Transformation)

GLOBAL GOALS
Every Achievement Counts
Social, Economic, Environment Development
SECTION 4: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts (Section 4: Digital Transformation)
Section 4: Digital Transformation
Like it or not, going digital is an unstoppable wave. Either catch up or be left out.
While you might be exposed to quite some technical jargon, further details or info
could be just a few clicks away. Remember that the only skill you ever need in today’s
world is to find the answer over the internet through asking the right question, fully
leveraging the accessibility and convenience digitization has brought us.
● Digital Future: What Is In It For Everybody?
● Digitization: Catch Up or Left Out
● Going Digital: What It Takes and What We Get
http://www.thesdgs2030.com © 2020 BSYS Solution (M) Sdn Bhd. All Rights Reserved.

“The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; first, a feeble spark, next a flickering
flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power. The day science
begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade
than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” ~ Nikola Tesla
Going digital, or digitization is something not easily comprehended by most people
especially those living in the industrial age for quite a long time as most of the things
happen in the virtual world nowadays. These things in the virtual world are not easily
seen, touched or felt. Creativity and a certain level of imagination plays a vital role here.
It doesn’t have those tangible investments like buildings, machines, vehicles etc that
could be seen and touched, besides the huge server rooms and related facilities, to
name a few.
Other than that, since it’s an ever evolving industry, there will always be a time where
people might be caught up in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and
Ambiguity, and a catchall for “Hey, it’s crazy out there!”) situation . Though it might seem
1
that changes are fast on the surface, the underlying principles remain the same. Just as
how the tools change from the early days of cassette tape to current online streaming
and who knows what might be in the future, the basic is still transfer of information.
Likewise, be it from paper money to digital figures, the foundation is still transfer of
value. Be it from the early days of dial up telephone to present day’s mobile phones, the
underlying purpose is still connection and human interaction.
Good news is, as we explore more and more of the unseen area, the non-physical
phenomena, we might have a quantum leap for human progress, and humanity as a
whole. It will be up to us to wisely use the power to be for the betterment of the world
and for the numerous breakthroughs that we all long for. This could include what we had
always seen only in science fiction books or movies, like that of space and time travel.
Not to go too far away from now, the possibilities of empowering more citizens and
being more inclusive in a more synergized progress globally has been made possible
via technology advancement.
Going digital is inevitable and it is happening faster as days go by. It is not a question of
to go or not to go, but rather how to catch up and stay afloat in this wave of change.
1
What VUCA Really Means for You by Nathan Bennett and G. James Lemoine
https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you

Digital Future: What Is In It For Everybody?
“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed.” ~ William Gibson, The
Economist, December 4, 2003
The above quote by William Gibson corresponds to the belief of “there had never been
problems with the resources, the problems lie within distribution.” While digitization itself
could be a form of inequality when it comes to distribution, digital tools itself can be
used to close the gap as well. It pretty much depends on how well we keep designing
and enhancing the future system to be, and the balance point we put between
technology and humanity. We shall discuss further in Chapter ABCDE The World on
this.
“Smart and responsible use of technology will help us achieve SDGs.” ~ António
Guterres, The UN Secretary General2
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 which calls for reducing
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inequalities in income as well as those based on age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity,
origin, religion or economic or other status within a country, also addresses inequalities
among countries, including those related to representation, migration and development
assistance. In other words, this Goal 10 calls for reducing inequality within and among
countries, because inequality within and among nations continues to be a significant
concern despite progress in and efforts at narrowing disparities of opportunity, income
and power.
Having said, the future might be created on uneven foundations. In order to understand
how we can create futures that do not exclude, isolate, or exploit, we have to
understand how the future is written in the present . By having a good digital system in
4
place, we can have a clearer view on current conditions and situations, thus be able to
fine tune and make proper adjustment to steer towards our goals. This could be done in
4
The Future is Already Here - It's Just Not Very Evenly Distributed, Authors: Tim Chatterton, Georgia
Newmarch
https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/march-april-2017/the-future-is-already-here
3
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg10
2
https://www.unhcr.org/blogs/antonio-guterres-smart-and-responsible-use-of-technology-will-help-us-achie
ving-the-sdgs/

a more effective way, driven by facts and figures effectively collect, manage, and
process by machines - artificial intelligence.
This chapter will deal a lot with technical, specifically digital technology related terms.
We can’t avoid all the tech jargons if we were to talk about and discuss further on the
digital future.Things like Gig Economy, Slashers, or even new terms that had yet to be
coined alongside invention of new technologies and new ways of living or doing
business. How would anyone foresee terms like Youtuber, Instagramer, Tik-toker,
datanomics, predictive analytics etc prior to these tech achievements and real world
application? What would the future of jobs look like? No matter how things progress and
develop, it is going to reach us or affect us in a way or another.
Two most important vocabulary about the digital future might be Decentralization and
Empowerment. Decentralization is about the shift of power from a centralized authority
kind of entity back to the masses’ (i.e. the people) hand. As such, more empowerment
to the people is going to happen throughout the progress. Is there any success case or
proven track that this could be done? Yes. The case of Wikipedia. The birth and
existence of Wikipedia prove that things can be in good hands if done correctly with a
good technology, or digital system. While traditionally people may rely on a centralized
publisher to print out the whole set of encyclopedia, people use collaborative effort for
the content input, check and balance in the digital world. All done in split second,
borderless, and relatively much lower cost.
From a nation-state perspective, digitization will quantum leap the level of efficiency for
government services. Imagine a top down approach with a strong execution where
policies and related frameworks are well defined for social, economic, and
environmental development for a nation. This will align the whole country to a common
goal over a defined period, where synchronization and synergy can be created
leveraging on emerging technologies. This is not a new idea, and countries around the
world are indeed on a race towards the actualization of an effective digital government.
Along with smart city developments, we now have smart nation initiatives.
The experience in writing the blueprint for the development of a national level SDG
Progress Monitoring System and blueprint for the development of a nation-state
Statistical Data Warehouse has brought to the ideation and writing of this book. While
we have the high level perspective of building a progress monitoring system backed by
a state of the art data warehouse, it is good to have a complementing blueprint for the
people. This is one of the purposes for this book, to provide a blueprint-like content and

guidelines for the masses to refer to, as we march towards year 2030, 2050 and even
further.
From a business or corporate perspective, digitization brings process automation,
alongside smarter and precise decision making. We now have datanomics, which is the
study of the combination of data and economics, where data can be monetized, or even
become money itself. The key is data. Data is new oil. Oil is money. Money makes the
world go round. In fact, Apple's post-earnings surge pushed its market cap past that of
the entire US energy sector, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts wrote in 2019 .
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“If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” ~
Warren Buffet
From a more personal perspective, digitization is the key to freedom. Going digital will
not only give you the financial and time freedom, but also geographical freedom. Once
you understand how to leverage the digital system to achieve more freedom, you will
start to make room for more things that really matters, that most people will only ever
dream of.
As such, it is important to first define the purpose of digitization, considering who are the
stakeholders, what is meant to be achieved, and the time period given. Each and every
entity will have their own challenges and limitations but as technology advances, more
solutions are bound to come and we foresee more breakthroughs to be achieved.
All in all, an AI driven, Blockchain based Cognitive resource management system
powered by Data, Ethically is the system to be built for managing the progress towards
a sustainable future. Whether it will be a centralized, authority controlled model or a
decentralized, people decided model, such as those marketplace versus corporate
debate, or to strike a balance between both models, we shall progress and enhance
along the way.
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn
5
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/apple-market-cap-higher-than-us-energy-sector-baml-an
alysts-2019-11-1028693047

Digitization: Catch Up or Left Out
It is not up to us to decide whether to embrace digital technology or not anymore.
Digitization has become a necessity, especially for businesses. It’s a must and it must
be embraced now. Almost everything that concerns our economy is being digitized.
Things as small as our daily routine reminders to nation state level decision making.
Things as simple as measuring our heart beat to monitoring pandemic data on a global
scale. The only choices left to us are to either catch up or be left out in this unstoppable
wave of digitization.
The key is to understand the principles and be able to relate. While most of the things
might seem changing pretty fast on the surface, you need to understand what doesn’t
change fundamentally. Take note that certain technology or tools itself might become
obsolete someday, even soon enough in a very short period. But this shouldn’t stop you
from embracing technology or go the digitization path. There is more than meets the
eye.
Are you “young” enough to remember things like cassette tape, floppy disk, LDs or CDs
etc? They don’t survive for long. But the fundamental of transferring information - be it
files, media or data - is still intact. It is the tools or medium or the way of how things
work on the surface that changed, not the unseen fundamentals.
The vocabulary we will be discussing here would be Gig Economy, which is a free
market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations hire
independent workers for short-term commitments . Jobs that last for a specific period of
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time, which include but not limited to those in the area of Digital / Distance Learning,
Work From Home (WFH), self-made celebrities from Blogger to Broadcaster. We shall
explore these three areas and see how the future will be from here. The key is leverage.
Learn From Home, Work From Home
If there is something remarkable that the global pandemic breakout of Covid-19 which
caused the global scale massive lock down, it would be more actualization and belief on
how education and some of the global jobs can be done and delivered remotely, as long
as connection exists.
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https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/gig-economy

Go to college, take a course, spend some 2-3 years and obtain a cert. That's old school.
It's the learning process for industrial age. Today, we can learn almost anything through
the internet, at a very small fraction of conventional method's cost. No long hours
traveling, no hostel and costly living fees, no wasted time and risk on knowledge and
market needs gap. You have the option to learn then apply, instantly. It goes beyond just
a paper qualification from now onwards.
Border-less. Anytime, anywhere, at your own pace. Best of all, you get to know most of
the details before you decide to take up the course. You get to know the reviews of the
courses being offered, the credibility of the trainers or lecturers, the people from around
the world who have been through the courses and going to be your peers if you were to
sit in.
People go to school so that they can secure a better job after graduation. Majority of the
current schooling system is meant for the industrial age, where mass production models
are being used. But you don’t teach a fish to climb a tree. That is not what a fish is good
at and meant for.
What we have now is the ability to provide customized and personalized learning at
your fingertips. Be it to learn a new skill set, to learn how to use a tool etc, anything you
want to know or want to learn can now be easily found on the internet, connected
through any IoT devices such as mobile phones, smart TVs, and even smart vehicles in
the near future.
While almost anyone can learn and teach online, the catch is to learn from those who
walk the talk. For instance, coaching or mentor-ship works better than a mere academic
approach when it comes to entrepreneurship. Not all things can be learned and then
applied online. You don’t jump into a virtual swimming pool, or simply learn the theory of
swimming and think you will be a good swimmer after you complete the course. You can
only learn how to cook a curry chicken theoretically but you still need to have the
ingredients and tools to come out with the real thing in the real world.
A piece of digital certificate is just like a piece of printed certificate. It doesn’t matter how
much you learn but how well you apply your knowledge that is going to separate you
from the theorist. Of course, it is another story if you are learning simply for the sake of
additional knowledge on something else out of your domain, for the fun of learning or
any other personal reason.

Be careful of what you learn, and be well alert of who you learn from, especially in the
digital world. You may want to Google for further information about Deepfake
technology, which is the 21st century’s answer to Photoshopping. Deepfakes use a form
of artificial intelligence called deep learning to make images of fake events, hence the
name deepfake .
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The future of work will change as digitization marches forward. Google, Facebook,
Twitter, all these big names announced that their staff can work from home not only
during the pandemic lock down but also until the end of year 2020. Shopify followed the
trail when the CEO twitted on 21st May, 2020:
“Until recently, work happened in the office. We’ve always had some people remote, but
they used the internet as a bridge to the office. This will reverse now. The future of the
office is to act as an on-ramp to the same digital workplace that you can access from
your #WFH setup”. - Tobi Lutke8
Who's next? More to follow for sure. In terms of resource management, by enabling the
work from home method, we could be freeing lots of wasted time on traffic (amount of
time spent travelling to and from working place) into something more productive and
beneficial to the employees.
Imagine an office manager spending one hour in a traffic jam just to go to work in the
early morning and stuck just another hour in the traffic going back home after work. For
a five days work week, that makes a ten hours time on the road. One month equates to
40 hours on the road - a 5 x 8 hours business day. This sums out to about 480 hours
per year per office worker who works 12 months a year. Do the math, how would these
released time resources be beneficial to millions of workers around the world?
Work from home is just a term. Practically it means work from anywhere, as long as the
connection to the network is good. The key is to get things done effectively. It shouldn’t
matter what time you work, as long as results are delivered. Working long hours doesn’t
mean anything if it is not effective. Do not confuse efforts with results.
I have been using this work from anywhere model since the early days of the internet. I
survived throughout the journey and it is just a matter of choice. If I can't consult and
8
https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1263483497261432833
7
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/what-are-deepfakes-and-how-can-you-spot-them

deliver the solutions over digital medium, what makes you think I am qualified to advise
you on Digitization related matters? If you insist on a physical face-to-face meeting meet
up (when many collaboration meetings can be done over virtual rooms), you might not
be that ready for a digital transformation.
From Blogger To Broadcaster
Everybody holds in their hand the media power as decentralization happens over the
digital medium. Everybody can now be a scriptwriter, producer, director, even digital
celebrities with their own uniqueness. We have terms such as Youtuber, KOL (Key
Opinion Leaders), Internet Celebrities etc. New jobs may come and go at lightning
speed.
Everybody can be a content creator or a media owner. This has been true since the
early days of blogging. Many bloggers made it with a handsome return by putting their
thoughts, experience, knowledge etc into writings online. But things change as delivery
medium capacity keeps improving. Rather than writeups content, more and more
multimedia content is being produced and delivered every second over the digital
medium.
People are able to make money through copywriting services, translation services,
produce professional and quality video contents with a comparatively low investment,
something that may have only been done through large media production houses with
heavy investment, such as the TV stations, newspaper or book publishers. Having one
smartphone with cutting edge technology at hand may make you a media mogul
nowadays, provided you have enough creativity and the required skill sets to leverage
on what the device is capable of doing.
So, we briefly went through the education, jobs, and entertainment side of what
digitization is bringing and whether we are catching up at the moment. More exciting
progress is happening as I am writing the lines here. Expect changes in finance, and
banking systems, where decentralization is happening just as how it happened to the
media. There is this famous saying that “what the internet did to the media is what the
blockchain technology is going to do to the banking system”. To quote Andreas
Antonopoulos, people in the blockchain technology are not trying to put a bank account
into your phone, but to put a bank into your phone.
This is the best of time, this is the worst of time. It depends on which side of the history
you will be standing. It is like sitting at the front row watching how history unfold in this

challenging era. What doesn’t change beneath the phenomena are fundamentals of
being a human, things like the hunger for information, the need for entertainment, the
pride for being famous, the aspiration to showcase talent, to reach a dream, to fulfill a
purpose, etc.
The world is your oyster, the sky's the limit.
We are in the information age now. We are going to Mars and beyond soon. Never ever
give up. Your time will come, provided you work for it. Welcome to the new norm.
While what had been brought up may not be something new, there is still a huge gap
between the haves and have nots. The uneven distribution of technology due to social
inequalities and economic challenges need to be addressed and the gap needs to be
narrowed down. This can be done through a collaborative top down approach with
supporting movements by stakeholders which include the governments, businesses,
civil society organizations (CSO) and the people at large.
Going Digital: What It Takes and What We Get
Going digital is not merely putting your business on the internet, nor is it simply setting
up a social media page or channel and hope for automatic crowd pulling. It takes more
than what it seems, far more than what most people think it is all about. While
leveraging digital technology to make life easier makes sense to a certain level, there is
still lots of hard work and effort to be put into it. For instance, resource investment such
as time and money, learning curve, opportunity costs etc. Either you pay with money or
something else, such as time and data. You make your own choice and take full
responsibility to it.
Two important keys here are cost and commitment. Though many people might have
the misperception that going digital is something that doesn’t require much investment
or even a zero cost thing, bear in mind that relatively low cost is not free or cheap. It is
still a business investment and there are quite some intangible or related costs incurred
either directly or indirectly.
There is a huge difference being a tech company than just using technology to enhance
business operations. That could be one of the key factors that separates a business

from the rest. Quoted from a low cost carrier founder, “We are a tech company that
happens to be running a budget airline.” How you prioritize could make or break a
business. Beware of competition coming out of nowhere, suddenly.
In terms of commitment, it works the same when it comes to digitization or doing
business in the digital world. At the end of the day, commitment and perseverance will
show who finishes the marathon. It’s a long journey and there is a need for full
commitment to build up every single bit and pieces along the way. When there is a will,
there will be ways.
“All roads lead to Rome. Rome was not built in a day.”
In the days of the Roman Empire, all the empire's roads radiated out from the capital
city, Rome. It was a solid proof that all paths or activities lead to the center of things.
Your website or your app is your Rome in the digital world. We can have many other
analogies for this - the brain for our human body, the Central Processing Unit of a
personal computer in the desktop era, the central government running the nation-state,
etc. The key is, the center of the universe.
For ease of illustration, going digital can be summarized to these three important parts:
1) One Website,
2) Two Concepts, and
3) Three Phases of Development
Being well understood that setting up our own website as the center of universe to our
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venture in the digital world is important because it is part of the digital assets we are
building. In other words, our website is also our valuable asset in the digital world
besides the domain name, provided we build it up correctly and make it as valuable as
possible with the right content and business model.
Having a website is not much different from owning a piece of real estates in the brick
and mortar world. Only in the digital world, it is border-less and comes with unlimited
possibilities and opportunities, which is only limited by our imagination. Remember that
good old sayings, “Whatever the mind can perceive and believe, it can be achieved,”
and “When there is a strong will, there will be ways.”
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http://socialenterpriseguide.com/your-website-as-the-center-of-universe/

Why should we have our own website instead of simply hosting our info or products on
other media or other e-commerce platforms? There are three good reasons to having
your own website as the center of universe:
1) Ownership
Your domain name and your website solely belongs to you. You have full access and
control over your data, which is very important. Control your own data. It’s all yours.
forever.
2) Expandability
If you run your own system on your own server space, be it cloud or hosted services,
technically you can determine the features and customization over what can be done or
enhanced. You have the rights and can make the appropriate changes, as long as you
have the right team to do it.
3) Lifespan
Having your own website is like having your own house. When you are not a tenant, you
don’t have the risk of being terminated and being forced to move out, whatever reasons
it may be. You take full control over the existence of your website as long as you control
the domain, the system and the data.
I have a friend who hosted all his photography works in one of the largest photo sharing
platforms quite some time ago. One day, out of sudden, he received an email from that
photo sharing platform that they are going bust and he was given 3 months time to
decide what to do with his photos that he uploaded to the site. That was quite an
expensive learning experience for him as he never thought of a photo sharing platform
that big would shut down. It took him quite some time to download and re-organized all
his photo works back then.
It is like building your own Genting Highland (a famous hilltop resort area in Pahang,
Malaysia) or your own Disneyland, where you need to first define what would be offered
to tourists as they come to your resort, what are the access roads available for them to
drop by, may be via road from different cities, with optional cable car at mid-point of the
hill, even via helicopter to direct fly in. It works similarly in the digital world. Only this
time, instead of that tangible material things, it is in virtual form and different kinds of
presentation.

Besides, rather than a bigger investment in the brick-and-mortar world, it takes only a
fraction of that amount to build your wonderland in the digital world. Take note that it is
relatively lower cost, not free or cheap. Most people had got a wrong perception of this.
It also depends on whether you are just utilizing or leveraging the technology to
enhance the way of doing things so better efficiency is achieved, or you are going to
develop a new technology that could be changing the rules of the game for your
industry, or even disrupting other players in other industries. Our focus here will be more
on the former objective.
Image 4.1 Access Rings, Website as The Center of The Universe For A Business
While it is important to have our website as the center of the universe, it doesn’t mean
that we should ignore other platforms. As the above diagram illustrated, we should drive

the traffic from search engines and social media platforms into our center of universe,
and make use of whatever we planned to bring up the value of our digital asset, in this
case the domain name and the website. This will bring us to another important topic of
digital funnels later.
Rather than relying on a single platform as the main entity, it is always a better idea to
have a website as the center of the universe of our own in the digital world.
“Freedom of choices. And most importantly, we have full control over what we invested.”
The two important concepts would be leverage and monetization. The former makes
your life easier, and the latter provides tangible, measurable results for us to move
further. The numbers in terms of monetary value will tell us how good we are doing and
how far away we are from our target.
By definition, leverage is the exertion of force by means of a lever. In the digital world,
having a center of the universe as the leveraging point is important. You can substitute
the website with an app, or anything that you deem fit, as long as it can act as the
center of the universe in the digital world for you.
From our experience and model, a website is one of the most viable ways of doing
things, for a good start. What cannot be easily seen behind the scene of a website is the
system powering the products or services. There will be a lot of technical jargon but
most important vocabulary here would be the domain name, the database, and the
system. We will explore further on a higher level view of these important elements.
Relate a website to what you might have in the conventional brick-and-mortar world if
you were to venture into a business. You may need a retail point, a shop lot, a corporate
office, a warehouse, etc. It means you need a place to conduct your business or to run
your daily operations. That is what a website can, and should do for you.
You need to define well what you want to achieve with your website, because the only
limit is only bound by your creativity and whether you are clear on your goals. For
instance, you can use a website as a portfolio building site where you tell the world your
expertise and capabilities, by showing them what you had done over the years through
a structured presentation of your works and achievements. It will be a strategically
developed, cumulative portfolio building site. Pretty much a fusion of a muzeum and a
showroom or art gallery.

So, whether you want to use your website as a business office, a showroom or a
storefront to conduct business, even to grow it into a marketplace platform, it will only be
bound by your creativity. The key is to have a central point to conduct activities,
whatever it may be.
Once you are firm on what to do with your digital headquarter, you will need to draft out
how things are going to be set up. Just like building your own dream house from
scratch, you need to know how many bedrooms you want, where will be the kitchen,
wet kitchen and dry kitchen, laundry area, indoor or outdoor facilities, etc. Rather, for
business, you are actually building your own wonderland. Just like how a real world
theme park may be built, you need to know who the stakeholders are, what are the
areas people get to visit, how they can interact and be part of each section as you zoom
in the specific area etc.
It is pointless to build something without users or visitors in terms of business
perspective. We shall walk through the marketing funnel and
Prospect-Conversion-Revenue illustration table later. For now, let’s explore further on
accessibility. Accessibility to the business website sections, how they are connected
internally and how access from outside could be reached is what needed to be planned
as well. Image 4.1 illustrates the ring of access in the digital world simplified to two outer
rings - the Search Engines and the Social Media (Socmed).
Is it easy to go after the unlimited with limited resources, or the other way round? By
having a center of the universe in the virtual world, be it a website or an app, it is better
for you to leverage the digital medium to bring in traffic.
On layer 2 of the access ring, you will hear of jargon such as Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign, or Search Engine Marketing
etc that refer to activities related to bringing in traffic, i.e. visitors to your website or apps
download page. Both SEO and PPC are the process to ensure that the site appears
high on the search engine's list of results. The obvious difference between SEO and
PPC is organic and paid. Organic as in you don’t pay any money for your site to appear
higher in the search result, as in PPC where you bid for a higher ranking in search result
based on market popularity and demand of certain keywords search. Search Engine
Marketing (SEM) is a form of internet marketing with the aim to maximize the number of
visitors to a particular website . SEM could be a combination of both SEO and PPC.
As we move further away from the center spot, into the outer access ring where all
socmed resides, we have way more choices and options compared to that of search

engines. For instance, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Nowadays,
we also have Instant Messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat etc. Features
and functions are quite similar, and each stand out having their own unique positioning
and selling point. There will always be newcomers to the list and some dropouts from
the existing players, yet the needs to connect and interact remains.
We would not be able to predict the exact future and what new technology might be
replacing the existing ones. The key is communication. It is all about content and
communication.
Image 4.2 : Prospect-Conversion-Revenue Table
What next after figure out how to optimize through search engines and bring traffic to
the site through multiple socmed channels? Things happen for a reason. You better
have a good reason for doing all the hard work so you are not beating around the bush.
The key here is conversion, and monetization. At the end of the day, only results matter.
Don’t mistake effort with result.
In order to have better judgement on the outcome of the risk-reward ratio through the
actualization of revenue and net profit in numbers, there is quite a process to go
through. There are a few checkpoints where we can always measure and improve along
the journey.
There are a few vocabularies that need to be well understood - prospects, conversion
rate, customer, purchase value, purchase frequency, revenue. These are important Key
Performance Indexes (KPIs) to achieve the ultimate figure in this part of discussion,
which is the revenue. Take note of the few important points to be illustrated through the
above table.

As you keep practising the methods, and keep recording the KPIs along the way, you
will find that the Law of Large Numbers applies. It states that the average of the results
obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value and will
tend to become closer to the expected value as more trials are performed .
10
For ease of explanation purpose, let’s start with a scenario where we have only 1,000
prospects, which happened to drop by an e-Commerce website. If 10% of these 1,000
site visitors were to purchase something from the website, it means the website had just
captured 100 new customers. If these customers only make an average of $10
purchase, for a single time every month, it means they are generating $1,000 monthly
revenue for the business.
What happens when we increase the number of prospects, the conversion rate, the
purchase value, and the purchase frequency by another 50% respectively? As shown
by the table, there is a whopping jump of revenue from a mere $1,000 to $5,062.50!
Linearly, a 4 x 50% increase would only bring about 200% jump in revenue. But that is
not the case as shown in the table. In fact, it is a 500% increase in revenue!
Clarity leads to power. Facts and figures don’t lie. You can’t improve what you can’t
measure. You just need to be true in recording down the numbers. Good news is,
everything can be digitized and automated. So it is important to be able to measure
what you do. A business dashboard will be of good help, and this comes with most
e-Commerce systems nowadays.
What can we learn from what has been illustrated? What are the messages or hidden
lessons that we can find from the above example?
1) Begin with the end in mind. It is always good to start with a clear target and well
planned strategy, coupled with measurable KPIs.
2) Clarity leads to power. When you have the numbers, you know how well you
perform and where to do the fine tuning. You need to know each and every
checkpoints in order to achieve the ultimate goals.
3) A little bit of further effort at the right place will bring you astonishing results,
provided you know where the right place is and what are the efforts to put in.
10
Dekking, Michel (2005). A Modern Introduction to Probability and Statistics. Springer. pp. 181–190.
ISBN 9781852338961.

What has this got to do with digitization? Automation and measurement. While there
may be quite some steps to get to the correct figures at the end of the day in the
conventional way of doing things, digitization provides the venue to seamless
integration. A lot of marketing and management processes can be streamlined and
automated.
If you look at the image, the Prospects, Conversion, Purchase Value, Purchase
Frequency part of the sales cycle can be automated through the use of technology,
something unimaginable in the brick-and-mortar way of carrying out marketing and
sales activities.
How do we apply the concept of measuring, automating the sales cycle where the
numbers can be monitored accordingly? This will bring us to the next discussion point of
Three Phases Development - Get Set, Get Found, and Get Connected.
Image 4.3 : Get Set, Get Found, and Get Connected.

Imagine you set up a house warming party, and you invited a whole bunch of guests to
attend your party set at your new residence. It turned out that the response was quite
overwhelming as many people showed up and wanted to join your party. But oops, the
number of guests was around 200 people yet your house can host the max 100 guests
at any single point of time. What if this is a business sales event?
So first things first. Get set, be well prepared for what you are expecting.
When we say get set, it means setting up your online presence properly and make sure
it is scalable. Most of the things work in the digital space just like how they work in the
brick-and-mortar world, conceptually. The differences may be on how things are being
conducted and interacted. Just like how you need a proper setup in order for people to
walk in and make some purchases from your shop, you need that in the online space as
well.
Stability, security, and scalability. Have these settings in place properly and you have a
smoother sail in the digital world. The foundations are important to ensure business
uptime and fit the purposes of having a digital presence without much headache in the
future as you grow.
The thing about stability is the working of your site must be consistent and not having
major changes in a frequent manner. Just like how most software development goes,
only major upgrades will see a drastic change in user interface, user experience and
process flow. People stick to their habit and don’t like drastic changes over a very short
period of time. This is a bit psychological but at the end of the day, at least for now,
people matter. The future world with lots of connected machines could be a different
story.
With 24/7 exposure comes 24/7 security concerns. Just like how convenient stores that
operate 24 hours a day, their risk of being robbed is also in line with their opening hours.
In fact, the risk is higher during the night where most people are asleep. In the digital
world, this doesn’t matter as there will always be people staying awake depending on
which part of the world they are situated. So virtually and theoretically, hacking activities
or security breach is a 24/7 challenge that needs to be addressed strictly. You wouldn’t
want any of your clients or business data leaked into the public due to security breach.
Concerns about scalability had been brought up earlier with the analogy of a house
warming party. The recent pandemic outbreak that put people into their home for quite
some time had caused traffic surges to most of the websites around the world.

Suddenly many businesses caught by the surprise traffic surge and faced some down
time as their set up was not prepared for such a huge volume of traffic spike. Though
this happens to the conventional brick-and-mortar businesses too (occasionally), the
speed and scale at which traffic spike is unmatched by the conventional business when
it comes to digital stores.
Had you ever heard of the story of the little girl who brought an umbrella with her while
joining other villagers praying for rain? It was a story where after a long, dry and hard
season without any raindrop, the villagers decided to gather at a place and pray for rain.
Of all the villagers who attended, only a little girl brought an umbrella with her. Where is
your umbrella? Don’t forget your umbrella.
Bear in mind that you are not building a website for simple purposes, be it informative (a
corporate introduction website with a contact point) or conducting businesses (such as
those e-Commerce sites where purchases and monetary transactions happen online).
You are indeed building a digital asset. Something that will be of value in the future.
What do you want to do with your website or your apps? Be it for information purposes,
to promote something, to educate as in content marketing etc, or for business
transaction purposes such as eCommerce where you have a catalog to sell products,
make sure the set up fits its purpose and the 3S - stability, security, and scalability.
Get a good domain name, as how you might want to have a good business name. In the
new norm, you might even search for availability of a domain name before you decide
on which business name or branding to go.
Get a good office or premise in the digital world. While there are lots of free and cheap
hosting options available, consider the 3S as mentioned above when it comes to
selecting a host to your digital presence. One of the biggest risks of using a third party
platform is what happens to your data if they close up shop. Control over the most
critical aspect of your online presence is fundamental.
Not only the backend system must be strong enough, but the front end presentation
must be as attractive or at least, good looking as well. Premium design will make your
site stand out among peers compared to most of the free designs. It’s optional but it
doesn’t require a deep pocket to do so. Beautifully made templates are available at very
affordable prices.

Besides the cheaper “renovation” cost when it comes to websites as compared to the
conventional brick-and-mortar setup, one thing good about online presence is that you
get to have a look and feel of how things will be, even before you decide which one to
go. Most of the premium design will come with a demo version where you can browse
through and make all your comparisons with other options before any purchase is
made. What you see is what you get. It will save you a lot of time in dealing with
designers as in a build from scratch situation. Time is money.
Launching a website with a basic setting and one with premium design is like inviting
people to a basic and simple show house VS a fully furnished show house. Pre-build
premium design will save you a lot of time, a lot of sweat and tears!
Pay peanuts, get monkeys. This is the golden rule for any venture.
No matter what you intend to do with your digital presence, Ready-To-Go status will be
just like how you would prepare a business portfolio or brochure in the real world. You
will need to have a few key sections as how you will setup your office or shops in the
brick-and-mortar world:
1) Home Page or A Landing Page - where people may have the first impression of
who you are and what you want them to know in brief.
2) About Us Page or section - some key information about details of the business,
such as the vision mission statements, background, and the team.

3) Contact Us Page or section - where you let people know how to reach you
through different channels, such as a contact form, business address, phone,
socmed links etc.
4) Products / Services / Catalog page or section - a place to showcase the items
you offer, preferably with a functional shopping cart or full fledged eCommerce
system so you can conduct transactional business online.
5) Updates / News page or section - to keep your business stakeholders well
informed.
It won’t run too far away from the basics of 5W1H (Why, What, Who, When, Where,
How). After all, one of the main purposes of your web presence should be to tell people
who you are, what you do (or how good you are at something they are looking, how you
can help your target clients and how they can get in touch with you, at least.
One of the keys to building good will over digital medium is to keep your site visitors
posted from time to time. It could be your prospects or your clients who will see your
updates on a periodic basis. Just keep the site alive with business related updates or
some useful info that will benefit the visitors, even if they are not your customer. This will
be further elaborated when we go into the Get Connected part of the Three Phases of
Implementation.
Once all basic setup is done, you should be entering the Get Found phase. Remember
the golden phrase "The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google search
result”. It is no point to build a luxury resort in the middle of the desert, so as opening up
a small cafe in the middle of the city yet not easily noticed by the crowd. If you are
running a business, its existence has to be noticed. Without the traffic, you won’t even
have the prospect count as shown in Figure 4.1. How would you be able to reach the
revenue target if you can’t be found?
As we had covered generally about SEO, PPC, Search Engine Marketing and Social
Media Marketing earlier in this section, let’s look at Content Marketing and Email
Marketing.
The key concept here is what I coined “Sugar Cane Juice Theory”. If you happen to
come across a sugar cane juice seller in any of the Malaysian pasar malam (local Malay
name for a night market), you will see a machine with two main rollers that will squeeze
out the juice from the sugar cane as you pass it through the narrow space between the

two rollers . Any sane juice seller will try to extract the most juice out of a single piece
11
of sugar cane by keep sending it to be scrolled through in between the rollers.
{Insert pasar malam sugar cane juice machine photo}
Same thing goes for digital content. One thing good about digital content is the
characteristic of it. You can produce unlimited copies of the same production, almost at
identical quality, in a blink of an eye. What would you do given such an advantage? Sell
the same thing over and over again in multiple forms through different channels, with
near zero duplication cost. In this case, the digital content that is most likely a piece of
information, which could be in any media form such as an image, a write up, an audio or
a video etc.
That is how you can play with content marketing. For instance, once you did your
livestream show over a social media channel, you can repost the recorded video to
other social media, with or without any post production. You can embed it into a page of
your website, make some notes to it, and turn it into a portfolio showcase later.
The key is to build or open up as many incoming traffic as possible to a pre-destined
location, be it a landing page for sales conversion or a signup page for list building. This
is important as it will add up the numbers in the Prospect column as shown in Image
4.2. Take note that these channels must be your target market in the first place. For
example, you don’t share food related info in a music related fan page. Just like how
you go to places where like-minded people gathered in the real world, the same things
happen in the digital world.
While getting leads or prospects via socmed marketing is a way to create brand
awareness and drive traffic to your center of universe in the digital world, creating your
own followers through email marketing is another way of how you can do advertising
and promotion while at the same time keep the momentum going.
The key here is list building. Rather than leveraging on other people’s community or
database, you now have the power or tool to build your own list. Email marketing could
be in the form of content marketing, where people subscribe for valuable information
such as short courses, useful tips or know-how info etc. You have at will how you want
the email list to function, be it for promotional info, educational info, keeping rapport with
clients or subscribers etc.
11
Sugarcane Juice Extractor Machine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2CCynH7r0E

Just like having your customer data in your own system, having your own email list to
facilitate marketing activities will add further value to your digital asset. Note that email
marketing is just one of the ways of keeping your brand and awareness intact with
prospects and clients. While at the time of writing it still works, nobody would know how
communication of the future will be like. Just like nobody is using ICQ or mIRC
12 13
nowadays (if you still remember or even aware of their existence), we wouldn’t know
what the future of email would be like. While technology and tools change rapidly, the
need for communication, advertising and promotion remain. It could be automated, it
could be run by machines, or cyborgs, if they do exist in the future.
How do you run a good Advertising & Promotion over the digital medium?
1) Develop Purpose Driven Content for Branding and Marketing
It is the orchestrated marketing campaign backed by sound strategy that
separates the achievers from the ordinary. Just like how you would run a
conventional event in the real world, you need to at least be clear on what to do
on each phase of the campaign or event, namely pre-event, event, and
post-event stage.
2) Run A Well Orchestrated Digital Campaign
Remember that all roads lead to Rome, and these roads are interconnected. It is
not an either or selection. It should be a well woven solution, where each and
every knit is well connected and somehow related. There should be a sequence
of activities or sub-events that leads to the grand slam.
3) Maintain A Good, Automated Relationship with Stakeholders
You don’t stop once the campaign or A&P activities ends. You need to be well
aware of the follow up work and catching up jobs to be done. These include but
are not limited to post-event customer relationship management, prospects
conversion efforts, list management etc.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is that both tangible and intangible value of the
business need to be actualized and monetized accordingly. Sales solve all problems,
and you can’t have sales without effective advertising and promotional activities through
13
mIRC is an Internet Relay Chat client for Windows, created in 1995. It is a fully functional chat utility.
12
ICQ is a cross-platform messenger and VoIP client. The name ICQ derives from the English phrase "I
Seek You".

cutting edge technologies. Most scary part is, imagine you go to a battlefield with a knife
while all your competitors are carrying at least a machine gun, and now we are in the
age where cyberwar and bioweapon has been made possible. What would the future be
like?
The Get Connected Phase will contribute mostly to the Purchase Value and Purchase
Frequency part of the Prospect-Conversion-Revenue Table. Word of mouth marketing
works better than cold calling because the recommendation comes from a closer and
more trusted source. By keeping existing customers happy, the return rate will likely be
increased and so will be the referral rate. They are all interconnected, just like how the
SDGs are related and linked to each other, though they might seem standalone at first
glance.
The tools used in this phase are mainly for Customer Relationship Management
purposes. Relationship matters. Whatever tools may be used, it is about building the
rapport and keeping in touch with people. What has been listed are just some of the
common digital tools that businesses use to manage the clients and prospects.
Newsletter is part of email marketing and content marketing tools. By having a good
newsletter system is like having your own brochure distribution system. Yet, it can do
more than that. Since it has been digitized, there are more wonders that can be done
when compared to conventional printed papers. You get statistics. Numbers that tell you
how effective your writings or your campaign is, and may give you insights of how you
can do better next time.
For example, if you were to distribute flyers or pamphlets the conventional way through
snail mail or inserting them into mailboxes, you wouldn’t know the exact number of open
up and reading through. By having a good digitized newsletter system, you get at least
basic statistics like total number of emails delivered, number of emails opened as at
report time, total click through rate (for example, if you put some link in the newsletter or
email content that drives traffic to your landing page) etc.
A helpdesk system, just like the name suggests, is a digitized version of the
conventional helpdesk. Customer relationship management is important, as people tend
to speak to another person or to be attended to, whether it is a human being on the
other side or an advanced AI system that couldn’t be easily spotted by normal people.
The information collected through the helpdesk system can be used for machine
learning to train the AI system for better customer service experience as well, it’s an
infinite and progressive loop.

The information can also be strategically extracted into a Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ) section in the website or app, thus reducing repetitive, routine services, freeing
up more customer service time so that resources, specifically manpower can be
relocated to a more productive work.
To bring automation further, you may consider having a client back office for customers
to serve themselves in those repetitive or commonly used features. Think of it like the
ATM machines for banks. While the ATM machines free up most of the front desk
teller’s job and be able to operate out of office hours, a good client back office system
will provide the similar function, yet not location nor office hour bound.
To get a better relationship with prospects and clients, remember that each and every
social media channel must be well taken care of. Each channel has their own unique
positioning and managing socmed accounts for businesses is no different from
managing the business itself, it’s all about content and connection, conversion and
monetization, automation, measurement and improvement.
Mobile interface is just one of the ways people get access to all the entry points into a
business in the digital world. Sooner or later, the interface or accessing devices may
change or be upgraded. For example, hologram display, augment reality etc new high
tech medium. Access to businesses may come from Internet of Things (IoT) devices,
smart machines etc. These are things that need to be well aware of and lifelong learning
is the key to catching up with the world's progress, especially in this era where things
are moving and changing at a very fast pace.
In other words, while the rest could be just a wow factor surface thing, digitization gives
you at least one extra thing behind the scene that the conventional media or printed
marketing materials couldn’t do - precise, analytical data. You get a better view of your
return on investment, effectiveness of your work, besides automated processes and
better reach out. You shall be amazed by what could have been done as you check out
the ABCDE The World chapter in the Resource Management section.
While the Get Set part would not be reviewed or updated in a frequent manner as
compared to Get Found and Get Connected phases, the key is to build a long lasting
relationship with prospects and clients, as long as possible. At the end of the day, the
very core of business is to add value to people’s life. Either you help people save or
make money, help people save time, or solve people’s problems. Things won’t run too
far away from any of these cores.

Chapter Recap
Digital Future : Decentralization and Empowerment
Digitization : Sustainable cities and communities (smart cities)
Going Digital: Cost & Commitment
1 Website Content + Communication
2 Concepts Conversion + Monetization
3 Phases Automation, Measurement & Improvement
What hinders most people from achieving that noticeable result in the virtual world?
Costing and commitment. One is monetary or investment related concern, the other one
is more of personal or team spirit in not only making things happen but get things done
and produce good results.
Low cost doesn’t mean no cost. Sometimes the most expensive things come free. Free
things are most likely more expensive than it seems. If you are not paying for something
using money, you might be paying it with something else, for instance, your data or
privacy.
When it comes to commitment, it could be a matter of prioritization. When there is a will,
there will be ways. Easy life doesn’t come easily. Nothing is easy, but who wants
nothing?

Our Team (Authors)
Koh How Tze
Experienced in ICT system development and
integration, and digital media landscape. Currently a
business strategist specialized in digital transformation
related consultation, serving clients from governmental
organizations, MNCs and SMEs.
LinkedIn | Facebook
Joyline Chai
Actively involved in community and social services,
Malaysia’s SDG Pioneer, with a business background
specialized in Property Management Services,
Corporate Training, and Corporate Branding &
Marketing Consultancy.
LinkedIn | Facebook
Razleena Rindu
She combined both her passion in street selling and
addiction in exploring into the internet world, which led
her to E-commerce since 2005. In addition, she also
loves to educate people into going digital from learning
new languages and to share her spontaneous
marketing strategies.
Read more about our team here: https://thesdgs2030.com/our-team/

This book is part of the development blueprint for a technology driven social impact
project. For further info or collaboration possibilities, kindly get in touch with us at
projectdecacorn@gmail.com or visit any of our web portal here:
http://www.thesdgs2030.com http://www.socialcapital.asia http://www.socialenterpriseguide.com

Further Readings:
Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts (Section 1: Sustainable Development)
https://www.slideshare.net/howtze/global-goals-every-achievement-counts-section-1-sustainabl
e-development
Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts (Section 2: Global Goals)
https://www.slideshare.net/howtze/global-goals-every-achievement-counts-section-2-global-goal
s
Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts (Section 3: Social Enterprise)
https://www.slideshare.net/howtze/global-goals-every-achievement-counts-section-3-social-ente
rprise
Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts | Content Structure Preview & Briefing
https://www.slideshare.net/howtze/global-goals-every-achievement-counts-content-structure-pre
view-briefing
Global Goals: 5 pillars of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
https://www.slideshare.net/howtze/global-goals-5-pillars-of-sustainable-development-goals-sdgs
Reinventing Capitalism In The Age of Big Data (Reading Notes)
https://www.slideshare.net/howtze/reinventing-capitalism-in-the-age-of-big-data-reading-notes

Global Goals: Every Achievement Counts (Section 4: Digital Transformation)

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