HubSpot, the customer platform for scaling businesses, has released new data showing that many Singapore companies are contending with insufficient quality data and a disjointed tech stack even as costs and competition continue to rise.
Go-to-market teams—marketing, sales, and service—hold the keys to customer happiness, revenue generation, and ultimately business growth. But today, GTM teams struggle to keep up, let alone drive growth, thanks to intense competition, increasing costs to reach prospects and customers, and channel saturation. To make matters worse, their tech stacks are falling short.
Nearly half of Singapore businesses participating in a HubSpot survey cited high costs (44%) as their number one challenge, with one in five (22%) saying it’s their biggest challenge. This aligns with data from the Singapore Business Federation, which identified increasing manpower and utilities costs as key contributors to business expenses.
The survey also found that intense competition (39%), rising costs of reaching prospects and customers (35%), and channel saturation (34%) are impacting the ability of Singapore businesses to effectively attract and retain customers, potentially limiting their growth potential. Inability to compete against their peers could create additional pressures on Singapore businesses, especially with the country recently ranked the world’s most competitive economy worldwide.
While technology has traditionally been viewed among Singapore businesses as a tool to augment competitiveness and allow them to punch above their weight, barriers remain when it comes to quality data and a modern tech stack.
HubSpot’s findings indicate that less than half (43%) of Singapore businesses agree that their data and systems are effectively interconnected to provide a cohesive and comprehensive view of their customers. This can significantly increase complexity in managing customer interactions and experience, with the average business in Singapore needing to switch between more than 50 distinct applications to manage customer interactions. As a result, many businesses may struggle to gain a consolidated view of their customers, leading to disconnected data and a suboptimal customer experience.
“Needing to switch between more than 50 applications to manage customer interactions is not only detrimental to efficiency but could also lead to inaccuracies as businesses try to align insights across disparate data sources. Having a single source of truth for customer data is essential to build and maintain meaningful customer relationships,” said Dan Bognar, vice president & managing director of JAPAC, HubSpot.
“Technology can give businesses a helping hand, however, our findings show that data connectedness and a unified tech stack are presenting significant opportunities for local businesses looking to improve prospecting and customer retention,” he added.
An overall lack of quality data could also have had an impact on local adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools. According to HubSpot’s survey, nearly eight in ten (77%) of Singapore businesses felt they did not have enough data or the right data to make their AI usage effective. Perhaps as a consequence, about a third (34%) have not ‘started talking about generative AI at all’.
“Operating in the world’s most competitive economy is no easy feat, requiring a delicate balance between managing increasing costs while delivering an impactful customer experience. At HubSpot, we are committed to equipping businesses with applications that are easy to use, fast to implement, and delivered on a unified platform. This helps to align marketing, sales, and service teams with a unified view of their customer,” said Bognar.
To help businesses grow better in today’s environment, HubSpot is committed to building easy, fast and unified tools. That’s why, at INBOUND 2024 and in our latest Spotlight product launches, HubSpot has unveiled its easiest, fastest, and most unified version yet. Everything is built so that GTM teams can unlock growth for their businesses. – ACN Newswire
