Singapore, 20 April 2021 – Global ICT provider HUAWEI, AI unicorn 4Paradigm and Singapore-based startup Advocado today announced a landmark partnership to launch a first-of-its-kind AI-enabled CRM solution.

By integrating 4Paradigm’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and HUAWEI CLOUD capabilities into Advocado’s existing CRM software, a new smart solution, AdvocadoINSIGHTS will empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and retailers across Singapore to personalise and automate customer engagement. This will also help businesses to digitise and scale across Southeast Asia (SEA) by providing them with access to next-gen machine-learning technology.

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Making AI Accessible For Singapore’s SMEs

Launched in 2016, Singapore-based startup Advocado is the leading SaaS provider of CRM software for SMEs in the city. Advocado has served over 1.5 million customers in 800 outlets across the island, with traction in Thailand and Malaysia.

SMEs and retailers on Advocado’s CRM platform can now look forward to data-driven and intelligent customer experience solutions, enabled by 4Paradigm’s AI and machine learning systems. 4Paradigm’s fully automated (close-looped), integrated customer data and AI services will reduce customer acquisition costs and increase total customer lifetime value for businesses across SEA.

Bespoke machine learning models are created for each client in partnership with 4Paradigm. Currently, Singapore-based businesses like 20-outlet bed linen chain Linen Gallery by Epitex have already adopted custom AI solutions to automate their marketing campaigns.

“Epitex has been leveraging AI to enable our digital transformation, gain insights into consumer behaviour and create personalised customer experiences. With the implementation of Advocado’s AI-driven Electronics Direct Mail (EDM) campaign, we have seen a 3 times increase in click-through rate. We are pro-actively exploring ways to scale our business, especially as the pandemic hinders physical footfall to our outlets,” says Judy Zhang, CEO of Epitex.

“At Advocado, we believe that AI technology isn’t just reserved for billion dollar companies – it should be within reach of businesses, big or small.” said Eric Chia, Founder and CEO of Advocado. “Our new AI solution offering, AdvocadoINSIGHTS, and our robust cloud CRM software will empower SMEs and retailers to build better customer engagement processes and boost their revenue. We are committed to serving Advocado’s customers faithfully, especially in these trying times.”

Integrating AI With Retail

This partnership marks another successful foray for 4Paradigm into the SEA marketplace. The China-based AI Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider has been hailed as the leader in the AI space, and is best known for its end-to-end industry-grade AI platform 4Paradigm Sage.

With 4Paradigm’s integrations into AdvocadoINSIGHTS, retailers can segment customer demographics, manage omnichannel sales leads, and create personalised and targeted content like automated product recommendations on Advocado. 4Paradigm’s integrations can also create a unified customer profile based on data collected via websites, social media, mobile apps, payment gateways and more. These integrations improve customer retention rates and help businesses bridge the gap between digital and physical sales channels.

4Paradigm has the number one AI platform market share in China according to IDC MarketScape™️, and its retail clients include the world’s top enterprises, such as YumChina, Zegna, DHL, Budweiser and KÉRASTASE. Having just raised US$700 million in funding in a Series D funding round earlier this year, 4Paradigm now intends to herald its regional entry into SEA with Advocado to spearhead the digital transformation of businesses in Singapore.

“Today, 3 out of 4 consumers expect a fully personalised and immediately satisfying customer experience journey when they walk into a store. Unless you have AI that can iterate next steps for your business based on a large set of data, it will be difficult for any business to capture consumer interest,” says Mark Chen, Head of APAC, 4Paradigm. “4Paradigm’s machine learning solutions provide SMEs with a no-fuss way of optimising their CRM strategies, in collaboration with Advocado.”

Accelerating Cloud Adoption Across SEA

As Covid-19 accelerates digitisation, the rise of “Cloud 2.0”, where governments and enterprises are facilitating the large-scale shift of data and digital services into the cloud, has become the new norm. HUAWEI CLOUD is leading this shift as the fastest growing Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS) provider in the world, and the 6th fastest in the global market. The Chinese tech giant is actively incorporating SMEs into its cloud services, with SMEs in the SEA region joining their European counterparts through the tripartite partnership with Advocado and 4Paradigm.

By supporting the regional ambitions of Singapore’s SMEs, HUAWEI CLOUD’s service enables SMEs to accelerate digitisation and scale at speed. Advocado’s entry into the HUAWEI CLOUD Partner Network (HCPN) will allow businesses to develop AI and CRM tech solutions that leverage HUAWEI CLOUD Elastic Cloud Server (ECS), Elastic Volume Service (EVS), Elastic Load Balance (ELB), Relational Database Service (RDS) and Object Storage Services (OBS) services.

“As HUAWEI CLOUD continues to expand presence in SEA, we will empower small businesses across the region to grow rapidly. We have faith that this venture with Advocado will empower SMEs with the capabilities to supercharge their digital transformation and bolster their market expansion,” says Nicole Lu, General Manager, HUAWEI Asia Pacific Partner Ecosystem, Cloud and AI.

HUAWEI CLOUD is now available in 170 countries and has launched over 210+ cloud services and solutions. 3,500 applications are available on the HUAWEI CLOUD marketplace, with offerings from over 18,000 partners and three million clients, who are developing cloud services with the tech giant.

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About HUAWEI

Founded in 1987, Huawei is a leading global provider of information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and smart devices. We have more than 194,000 employees, and we operate in more than 170 countries and regions, serving more than three billion people around the world.

For more information, please visit https://www.huawei.com/en/

About 4Paradigm

4Paradigm is an AI platform and technology services provider. With machine learning technology, 4Paradigm helps enterprises to realise intelligent transformation. 4Paradigm has the number one AI platform market share in China according to IDC MarketScape™️ and has been named as one of the 50 Smartest Companies by MIT Technology Review.

4Paradigm has been promoting the rapid and scaled industrial application of AI relying on its technology and enterprise-level AI PaaS platforms and AI technology including AutoML and transfer learning. Currently, 4Paradigm has extended the AI application in over thousands of cases in the fields of finance, retail, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, the internet, media and more, facilitating every industry with AI innovation.

For more information, please visit https://www.4paradigm.com/

About Advocado

Advocado is a leading Cloud CRM SaaS for retailers in South East Asia. We help B2C businesses in F&B, retail, beauty and wellness to generate more revenue and regulars through growing, managing their customer base, and bringing loyal customers back again and again with marketing automation and AI.

For more information, please visit https://advocadoapp.com/