MMC Speaker Highlight: Ganesh Bangah takes Netccentric-Nuffnang Group to new growth levels

Having been established back in 2007, Nuffnang is well known as an influencer and content marketing company in Malaysia and throughout Southeast Asia.

However, the company is evolving with the times. It is still a subsidiary of Australian Stock Exchange Listed Netccentric Limited – but with a trump card which is its majority shareholder and Executive Chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah (main pic), known within industry as the ‘Bill Gates of Malaysia’.

For the uninitiated, Ganesh is an award-winning entrepreneur and start-up investor, having founded his first internet business, MOL AccessPortal Sdn. Bhd. (MOL), in the year 2000 at the age of 20.

Ganesh then listed MOL on the Malaysian Stock Exchange at the age of 23 when he was certified by the Malaysia Book of Records as the youngest Chief Executive Officer of a Malaysian public listed company. Through a series of acquisitions all over the world, Ganesh built MOL to become one of South East Asia’s leading online payment gateways and South East Asia’s first internet company to be listed on the NASDAQ in 2014.

Earlier this year, Ganesh had bought an 84 percent stake in Netccentric, a development industry observers view as a strategic move to unlocking a ‘blue ocean’.

Prior to the Netccentric purchase, Ganesh had built up the Commerce.Asia empire, essentially an end-to-end e-commerce ecosystem that integrates best of breed technology solutions, talent development programmes and big data insights for local and Southeast Asian businesses to succeed online.

Commerce.Asia develops these solutions by integrating and making strategic investments in technology enablers, so much so that it now has a database of 8 million small medium enterprises spread across 7 countries, coupled with 61,000 active merchants who sold more than RM1.5 billion worth of goods in 2019.

Now, when you integrate the strengths of Nuffnang and Commerce.Asia, you will get ‘explosive growth’ ahead. That’s what Ganesh has done to keep all the engines firing on all cylinders.

Enter the platform strategy in Nuffnang Live Commerce

The combined synergy among Netccentric and Commerce.Asia resulted in the birth of Nuffnang Live Commerce, a platform-based strategy that is able to capitalise on the growth of the global social influencer and live commerce industry.

“With this platform strategy, we have now connected multiple groups – including merchants, influencers and consumers – to create positive network effects,” Ganesh said. “With greater and a higher number of user participation, efficiencies inevitably increase.”

At the heart of this platform is a proprietary innovative tech dashboard which enables the automation of live streaming sessions on popular platforms such as Facebook for e-commerce transactions.

Live commerce represents the fusion of e-commerce and livestreaming which centres around influencers showcasing and promoting products and services to viewers.

Ganesh also added that live commerce is a much more enriching online shopping experience compared to traditional e-commerce shopping which according to him is due to the human nature of being deeply rooted to search for social connections especially during times like the current.

“Integrating our influencer, content and e-commerce know-hows, we will be providing end-to-end live video commerce solutions from live video production to payment and product fulfilment,” Ganesh added. “Our technologies, combined with our largest influencer platform and onboarding training, would then empower companies to be independent and self-sustaining as they propel and scale in this fast-growing field of live commerce.”

Nuffnang country manager Kausern Hieu said that live commerce was the game-changer last year for the e-commerce scene, accounting for what he believes to be almost 9% of total estimated e-commerce sales in 2019.

“The ballpark figure would be a staggering RMB440bil or 263 billion,” Kausern said.

From observing developments in China, personalities are important for both relevance and trust-ability. The host must also be well trained into in holding immersive sessions.

“In addition, shopping on live streaming has a short window of purchase and this drives urgency and spontaneity,” Kausern added. “This ‘in the moment’ shopping experience is addictive, more so with captivating deals, deep discounts and rewards for consumers.”

In Malaysia, live commerce is estimated to account for less than 5% of total e-commerce sales.

However it is fast gaining steam, in line with the segment’s growing trend globally.

Ganesh himself believes that live commerce would soon touch at least 10% of e-commerce sales in Malaysia, given Facebook’s large audience.

“If you compare existing e-marketplaces with Facebook, you will see that Facebook is the ‘shopping mall’ where a lot of people travel, while Lazada and Shopee are basically the shophouses, to which people will go only when they have something to buy,” said Ganesh. “So, we’re really targeting a niche that is fast growing on a platform in Malaysia that has the most amount of traffic.”

Ganesh will be a speaker at MMC Tuesdays happening on 10 November and his presentation titled ‘Growth Trends: How Live Commerce is Transforming Influencer Marketing‘ will air live on MARKETING Magazine’s facebook page at 3pm. Register for MMC Tuesdays now to receive a reminder before each session.