Extra tags: Digital Transformation
Google Cloud and airasia Super App, the digital travel and lifestyle platform for everyone in Southeast Asia, announced a five-year strategic partnership to advance airasia Super App's vision of a co-innovation ecosystem in which all businesses and developers can participate to serve the region's daily needs. The two organisations will combine key strengths to develop technical talent, co-create software tools for open innovation, supply data-driven insight on behalf of MSMEs on the platform, and assure accessibility for a wide range of users in cities and rural areas.
airasia Super App, which operates in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, is part of Capital A’s digital pillar. The platform offers flight and hotel bookings, e-commerce, food and parcel delivery, ride-hailing, financial and health services, on-demand education and more, anchored by an integrated rewards program and mobile wallet. Even as some services are being launched in various markets across Asean, the platform is already the lifestyle application of choice for 51 million users. According to Credit Suisse since its inception in 2020, airasia Super App has become one of three unicorns headquartered in Malaysia.
“Five years ago, when I decided to move our digital journey to its next stage, I was looking for a partner to help us reach that nirvana, much like how Airbus and General Electric helped us grow from a little two-plane operation to become the fourth largest airline in Asia. I went around the US looking for that partner, met Diane Greene from Google Cloud, and the journey started. With Thomas and his team, we are now on the road to disrupting the digital platform arena in the same vein as we did airlines. We may be late in the game, but with the Super App as the centre of our ecosystem of e-commerce, logistics and fintech, we are determined to give all 700 million people in Asean inclusivity, accessibility and value,” said Tony Fernandes, CEO, Capital A.
“With Google’s help, our ecosystem will not only be transactional, but be about building community, and enriching that community – not just the customers but partners like restaurants, airlines, hotels and drivers. I’m excited to reveal how airasia and all of Capital A’s assets will transform Asean and deliver value, not only in transactions but in making Asean a smaller place. What we are doing is not evolutionary, but revolutionary. I’m going to enjoy the ride with Google,” added Fernandes.
The strategic collaboration and ecosystem building efforts will encompass four pillars:
Fostering an agile culture and co-innovation talent engine: airasia Super App and Google Cloud will establish a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) consisting of AirAsia Allstars and Google Cloud technologists. The CCoE will embed an agile culture across all airasia Super App business units to accelerate product development velocity, enable teams to embrace change, and upskill talent. This includes tapping Google Cloud’s Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and MLOps best practices, so staff and AirAsia Academy graduates can strengthen their technical capabilities and meet the fast-growing business requirements. As an extension of Google Cloud’s product development team, the CCoE will also drive co-innovation efforts to shape the region's technological advances.
Ensuring seamless user access anytime and anywhere, on any device: The CCoE will improve the airasia Super App by leveraging Google Cloud's secure and scalable architecture, as well as advanced microservices, serverless, and networking technologies, to ensure that it remains durable, dependable, and lightweight when new features and services are introduced. This ensures that the platform operates well even when many users access it simultaneously, such as those in rural areas with sporadic internet connection or those using low-cost smartphones with limited storage capacity.
Unlocking data-driven insights to fuel MSME growth: The CCoE's data scientists can integrate and analyse datasets in real time to gain real-time insights into customer sentiment and developing patterns by leveraging Google Cloud's premier analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence capabilities. These include understanding the travel sector’s recovery trajectory and consumption patterns around food delivery, ride-hailing, and more. The insights will enable the platform to serve hyper-personalised recommendations to users on behalf of MSMEs and help grow these businesses’ revenue streams.
Empowering partners and developers to co-innovate and contribute: The CCoE will build a set of software development kits (SDKs) that ecosystem partners and external developers can use to quickly and cost-effectively develop new features and services for airasia Super App customers by leveraging Google Cloud's open-source concepts and infrastructure. Reusable software components for biometric identification, chatbots, e-wallets, online travel bookings, and more will be among them. Google will also use airasia Super App's in-region network to boost its Southeast Asian developer community.
“To benefit everyone across Southeast Asia’s heterogeneous communities, the airasia Super App must be simple and easy-to-use while underpinned by inclusive design, interoperability and personalisation,” said Amanda Woo, CEO, airasia Super App. “It’s therefore crucial that we leverage Google’s rich experience in building global platforms and ecosystems to equip and engage more talent, entrepreneurs and partners who can provide even more tailor-made solutions that fit users’ lives. What we’re announcing today is just the beginning, and we look forward to exploring further co-innovation initiatives with Google, whether in digital travel planning, self-driving cars, cloud gaming, startup investment, or supporting frontline workers through Google Workspace.”
“Super-apps are helping small businesses thrive and stimulate economies. In fact, the World Economic Forum estimates that 70 per cent of new economic value generated in the next decade will be driven by digital platform business models,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “airasia Super App is an inspiring example of a company that’s innovating using cloud-first technologies to better reach and serve their customers. We’re proud to be working with Tony and his team to further develop talent and an open innovation ecosystem to meet diverse digital lifestyle needs across Southeast Asia.”