SalesCandy™ Wins Hong Leong LaunchPad 2017

SalesCandy is the winner of the inaugural HLB LaunchPad 2017 programme!

The HLB LaunchPad is a mentorship and developmental programme by Hong Leong Bank in collaboration with the Malaysian Business Angel Network (MBAN) that reaches out to tech startups and the entrepreneurial community to nurture new ideas and talent that will reinvent the banking industry.

20 shortlisted startups pitched and demonstrated their technologies to HLB on July the 28th. Out of which, five startups - SalesCandy, PropSocial, Kakitangan.com, CapitalBay and Blinkware Technology - were selected to undergo an intensive three-month programme specifically focusing on three areas: Simplifying Banking Today, Digitising Customer Journeys & Experience; and Re-Imagining Banking for tomorrow.

Our founders, Stanley Chee and Jeffry Chan, were mentored by the Bank’s Senior Management and have gained first-hand experience and exposure to the knowledge, experience and expertise of the key people driving the product, business and infrastructure development within HLB in addition to cutting-edge technologies.

For the developmental part of the programme, SalesCandy also received an allowance of RM25,000 to enhance the app and launch a pilot test programme with HLB between October 20th and November 14th.

Throughout the programme, Stanley and Jeffry were invited to attend five Speaker Series events which kicked off with the topic on "Marketing Segmentation" by Eugene Yeow, the Head of Business Intelligence & Analytics, CEA Hong Leong Bank. He provided insights into HLB’s customer demographic and behavioural segmentation in comparison to peer banks. Other topics presented include "Design Thinking & Customer Journey Mapping to Enhance Customer Experience" and "Transforming Customer Experience with Leading Edge Technologies". These were presented by Loo Jian Sern - General Manager & Head of Customer Experience for HLB, Michelle Phoong - Manager of Design Thinking for HLB, and Kenny Lin - Head of Customer Experience Technologies for HLB.

Stanley and Jeffry also had the opportunity to meet one-to-one with Charles Sik, COO of Personal Financial Services; Ed Pinto, COO of Customer Experience and Analytics; and Amy Loke, Head of Mortgage, Personal Financial Services. The meeting with Charles was impactful as it helped us see things from an executive’s point of view. We have in fact shifted some priorities to focus on what is more important to business owners.

On Dec 7th, the final Demo Day, SalesCandy successfully showcased our business solutions to the panel of judges.

We were blown away by the fact that the group CEO, Domenic Fuda, along with two other Managing Directors were amongst the panel of judges for both event days. This shows that they are truly committed to the programme and that this isn't just to fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibility. The top management put in a lot of time to listen to the startups. They also humbly said that they want to learn from a startup.

Another takeaway from the HLB LaunchPad programme is that we managed to put together a live pilot project for HLB within a week and that went unexpected well. This was the first time ever that SalesCandy was benchmarked against the default system. In the case of our current clients, they didn't have a default system to benchmark SalesCandy against for response time, acceptance rate, closing rate, etc. The pilot has benefitted us tremendously and it also validated our business model and helped us see how we can develop our system further.

As the winner of the programme, SalesCandy stands a chance to get a possible investment of RM1mil from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (CFSB) and to have Hong Leong Bank as our first client in the financial industry.

The HLB LaunchPad programme has definitely proven that SalesCandy is also a FinTech that could help our potential clients in the banking industry to Close More Sales.

If company sales target is under your portfolio or if you are looking for a Sales Performance and Lead Management System in the Education, Property Development, or Banking industry, contact us to see how we can help you Close More Sales.