How to help hawkers to go digital

Much to the relief of the Food and Beverage (F&B) sector, dining-in resumed on Aug 10. However, with the pandemic far from over, the F&B sector remains volatile to the possibility of subsequent barring of dining-in again.

It is hence useful to consider what additional support might be provided to assist hawkers, especially those who are not IT-savvy, to adopt digital technology to boost their business.

Restaurants may be able to sustain their business through online delivery platforms, but hawkers who are not IT-literate have been facing an uphill struggle.

Even among hawkers who are digitally-savvy, the additional cost of using digital delivery platforms has made little economic sense given their thin profit margin and their inability to transfer the additional charges imposed by the platforms to consumers who are price-sensitive.

Thankfully, some Good Samaritans have launched various initiatives to help these disadvantaged hawkers, initiating efforts such as posting on Facebook on behalf of them, as well as participating in platforms and communities such as Hawkers United.

The Government also launched a workgroup, SG Together Alliance for Action (AfA) – Online Ordering for Hawkers. More recently, the Government also announced that it will reintroduce a grant to help hawkers get onto online delivery platforms.

Despite all the good intention and effort, there are other intricacies that affect the hawkers’ adoption of digital platforms, such as the Singaporean mind-set in expecting hawker food to be cheap and for the food to still look appetising and taste good after sitting in a plastic box for 30 minutes.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, most of us do not associate hawker food with online food delivery, just as how we would not fancy fine dining arriving at our doorstep through a delivery app.

As scholars who teach and research on the use and management of digital technology, we wish to share some insights on how better support can be rendered to digitally disadvantaged hawkers in adopting digital solutions. These insights are based on our research study on SG Assist.

SG Assist is an early-mover and a fledgling “born-digital” social enterprise that leverages digital technology to serve society. Officially launched in 2020, SG Assist is a social enterprise that facilitates the development of community spirit by connecting individuals who need assistance of volunteers in real-time through a smart-phone app.

CO-CREATING SOLUTIONS WITH INTERMEDIARIES

When SG Assist launched its prototype in 2019, the app intentionally targeted senior citizens, especially those living alone, who needed help with simple tasks such as changing light bulbs at home, grocery shopping or moving heavy objects.

However, many senior citizens were not sufficiently savvy with smart phones to use the app. SG Assist responded by pivoting its use case for the app such that an intermediary (for example, a family member, friend or social worker) may post requests on behalf of the seniors.

This proved especially useful during the circuit breaker last year when movement was restricted and children who do not live with their elderly parents could use the app to request help from those who lived near their parents to buy daily necessities for them.

Such an approach to use an intermediary to bridge the digital gap can be relevant in helping the digitally-disadvantaged hawkers go online.

Apart from individual Good Samaritans serving as intermediaries, hawkers can perhaps also serve as one another’s intermediary.

A digitally-savvy hawker who is already selling online through the delivery platforms may serve as an intermediary for fellow hawkers who are digitally-disadvantaged by helping to receive online orders on their behalf.    

Intermediaries could also exist in corporate forms, such as the committee of hawkers at every hawker centres or even the National Environment Agency (NEA), which is in charge of the hawker centres. 

The AfA is already working with NEA and the online delivery platforms, and perhaps can also work with other relevant corporate intermediaries to help the hawkers go online.

For example, instead of having each hawker stall go online individually, the hawker centre as a whole could set up a single account and a unified “shop-front” on the online platform.

A person could be assigned to receive and coordinate the orders from this online "shop-front” for the stalls at a hawker centre, easing the burden on digitally-disadvantaged hawkers. 

This may also bring down the cost of going online for the hawkers through economies of scale.

As it does not make economic sense to place an order for a S$1 Kopi-C and pay delivery fees that can be a few times more expensive, hawkers may also collaborate to package their respective offerings to sell as a set through the unified online “shop-front”. 

For example a chicken rice stall, a dessert stall and a drinks stall can come together to offer a lunch set to boost sales for the dessert and drink stalls.

For consumers, such a unified “shop-front” for a hawker centre is also a closer parallel to how we often order different dishes from different stalls when we visit a hawker centre, thereby potentially transferring such ‘cross selling’ onto the online space.  

Instead of seeing the online platform as merely a sales channel, it is more innovative and productive to envision it as a platform to promote collaboration among hawkers at a hawker centre.

This will help hawkers to better engage with their customers and supporters, thereby giving deeper meaning and purpose to the digital solution and inspiring the hawkers to go online.

USE A DESIGN THINKING APPROACH

SG Assist launched its first prototype app in March 2019. But the official launch of the app happened only in September 2020, after many rounds of changes in adapting to user needs and behaviours, along with discovery of novel uses of the app through improvisation by users.  

In essence, SG Assist adopted the ethos of what is known as Design Thinking, a human-centred, exploratory, adaptive, iterative and non-linear design methodology which focuses on the needs of the users. 

It is appropriate for situations where user needs are complex, with no straightforward solution in sight. Such is the case in helping hawkers go online.

Although online food ordering platforms are not new, creating a digital solution that meets the needs of hawkers with heterogeneous levels of digital savviness, along with their unique operational constraints such as thin profit margins, has proven to be no easy feat thus far.

Hence, the human-centred, exploratory, adaptive qualities afforded by Design Thinking does seem appropriate for such a scenario. 

While the challenges faced by the hawkers have caused much consternation among Singaporeans, we have to be careful not to become Luddites in opposing and resisting digitalisation altogether. 

Technologies, including digital technologies, are tools that can be used for the advancement or detriment of society and individuals. The crux is how we design, deploy and use these tools.

Hopefully the above insights will contribute to the development of digital solutions for advancing social good. 

Ultimately, technology should be harnessed as a positive force for the good of society by improving the lives of people.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Associate Professor Calvin Chan is director, Office of Graduate Studies and Dr Ng Boon Yuen is senior lecturer, Business Programme, at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. Their research interests include information technology and ageing, e-Government, impact of IT and digital economy on organisations as well as strategic use of IT.