Andy Polaine: Hello and welcome to Power of 10, a show about design operating
at many levels of Zoom from thoughtful detail through to transformation in
organization, society, and the world.
My name's Andy Plane.
I'm a design leadership coach, designer, educator, and writer.
My guest today is Dr. TR Tree Tan.
She specializes in culturalization strategies tailored for
international growth.
She leverages cultural insights to craft winning global business strategies and
has partnered with industry giants, fortune 500 companies and household
names, guiding them to navigate international markets successfully.
Tree tree's expertise lies in simplifying complex cultural landscapes into
actionable strategies that drive success for businesses worldwide.
She is also the author of a new book where she's gathered a
lot of her knowledge together.
It's called Research for Global Growth Strategies and Guidance
Across Cultural Insights.
Chui Chi.
Welcome to Power of 10.
Chui Chui Tan: Thank you Andy.
Thanks for having me.
Andy Polaine: So I gave you your sort of, you know, your official bio.
Can you tell me a little bit about your journey here?
I think I read in, in the book that you've been in 46 countries around the world.
Yeah.
Doing, doing, uh, I don't know how much of that is living or
traveling and how much is work.
Quite a lot of it's for work.
But, uh, tell me how you got into the, the work you're doing
and what you're doing now.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
Um, so I, my background is, I, I suppose I should actually mention about my
background because I think it plays certain elements into what I'm doing now.
So I'm a Malaysian Chinese, um, so my grandparents actually
from China, so by Malaysians I'm very relate to this country.
Um, so we follow the Chinese, uh, culture.
Um.
Because that is our traditions and we celebrate the, the, the same um, um,
celebrations as in China, but in Malaysia it is kind of like, I dunno, um, your
audiences and yourself know about this, but it's actually Malaysians, it's very.
A melting pot.
Really.
Yeah.
But is, um, it's kind of have a lot of ethnicities, um, like
Malay, Chinese and Indians and many other ethnicities as well.
So I kind of grew up in very much on the cultural, how to say, like
very much blended into different culture and very familiar to me.
Without me knowing that.
So my background, my undergraduate and my master is completely different's
in mechanical engineering and then, uh, music technology master.
And um, by, I end up doing human and computer interactions as my PhD.
And that led led me to, um, user experience, well we call it human
computer interactions and then usability and then UX and then cx.
You know, like I went through the whole evolutions of our industry really.
Um.
Can I accidentally mention about my Asian at this point?
Yeah.
But um, so yeah, I think, uh, my background is customer experience, but
where I start off with the globalizations and culturalization is more when I
started, um, working with, at the time Merit International, I was work with
them as their external global consultant.
Really helping them to understand their.
Travelers and, and from different cultures how they book hotels and
then meets from end-to-end journey and digital experience and also in hotel.
And that kind of start to bring me into, oh, there's actually the world
out there and what is different.
And then I think because it's quite, um.
My roots, where kind of see different culture is very common to me.
So I start to kind of work on that a lot more.
And then I start working for myself for the last seven or eight years.
And I focus very much on culturalization, I call it culturalization, uh, mainly
to help businesses to understand or simplify complex cultural landscape and
into actionable strategies that actually can drive them successful globally.
So it could be from, um, launching a new market, like we are going in into
a new market of this is the first time we're going into a new market.
What should we do, what we, what we should be paying attention to
or helping businesses to take their existing market to another level.
So at this moment as well, I also advise a lot of C levels and senior
management to help them to kind of uncover how their global opportunities
would be, and also if they have.
Let's say they have two markets in two markets and they have
very different function products, functions, and services.
How to bring them together into one as they start to grow globally.
So you can have too many different variations, um, to
maintains and, and, and governs.
Um, so how to bring that together so that you can cater for similarities as
well as differences, um, easily, um, most cost efficient and productive as well.
Andy Polaine: So maybe you can kind of pull apart.
Now unpack this, this difference.
'cause you talk about the difference between localization
and, and culturalization.
Uh, and I think you sort of mentioned a lot of clients they say, oh yeah, we we're
sort of already done some localization, which mainly is we've translated some
of our staff into another language.
But you've made the distinction here.
Can you talk a bit more about what's the difference between
culturalization and localization?
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
So first of all, culturalization, I don't think you can find
in any additional risk yet.
But it's kind of self-explanatory for me.
Um, I think when I've mentioned that people actually understand what that
means, um, in, in the higher level.
But for me, I start off actually talking about localization with
businesses, but I start to see actually the understanding there's a lot of
misunderstanding and we are not talking about the same thing when we talk
about localizations or culturalization.
So a lot of times, localizations.
Means to a lot of businesses or, or senior management is, yeah, like
you say, changing the language, changing the currency and ing, you
know, like adapt design elements to a very, the bare minimum.
And that is enough to do that.
But of course we all know that actually.
There are more than that to make a local experience better for the local audiences.
Um, there are more things to kind of consider your services and so on.
So localization is very much, um, more like one off actions.
So you do it once you change the language or you change the
currency and then that is it.
You know, like you doesn't feel like you need to do more
than that, whereas actually.
Um, culturalization for me is more long term.
Like you, you have to be continuously doing improving because you can be
possibly know all the insights about local culture and local market,
and then you do all the changes at once, and then that is it.
You, your knowledge about them is going to build up.
Um, progressively throughout, uh, the time and also their
behaviors and things might change.
Their context in the countries might change because they have
a better politicians and things change economically become better.
Yeah.
They have exposed to more, um, different technologies and so on.
So the local people's behavior and mindset and things like that
will start changing as well.
So culturalization is about that, about kind of understanding the full picture.
And the holistic view I call it.
And then you keep continuing, um, improving.
And it touch on not just language, not just product, not just, um, design, um,
or marketing, but it's actually touch on every single elements of your business
and everyone have to work together, um, so that it actually more align.
So that's why I tend to use the word culturalization.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
Can you gimme an example?
I mean, it's probably easiest, I think, to sort of hear from examples.
I, I'm, I'm interested of, you know, what happens if they don't do this?
What happens when they get it wrong?
And I dunno if you've got any examples of that you probably
might not want to name names.
Chui Chui Tan: Um, just different layers of getting it wrong.
Right?
The first layer I think I mentioned in my book as well, um, uh, research
for Culture, um, global growth is I actually have, uh, uh, three layers.
Um.
I call it to three levels of culturalization.
So getting it wrong could be the first layer where you actually create
something that actually offensive.
To the culture or to the religions of the countries.
Um, also on uh, or, so that is kind of like the basic thing.
You don't want to offend anyone because you want to build the respect
you, um, you want to kind of do that.
Some of examples I mentioned in the book, some didn't, but, uh, one of
the example was that geopolitical mistakes, a lot of company.
Did, um, in terms of putting Tibet, um, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and
all those into as a country, and so there's a backlash or they have to
apologize to the Chinese government.
So that's geopolitical mistake.
Um, and then you have others, like you, there's a campaigns in, um,
um, by a Canadian supermarket, like huge Canadian supermarket.
They kind of have this, um, festival for the Sikh.
Um, but they actually promoting, um, I can't remember which town made
like as a, as a, as the one of the promotions of the food, but actually
it's against their religions to actually consume that kind of meat.
During their festival and things like that.
So this I to think of getting it wrong or make the mistake, and then the rest could
be other elements where you kind of, um, provide, for example, this again, a simple
example, provide the wrong payment methods that they actually be more relevant with.
Like, for example, in, um, Kenya.
M PSA is very common.
If you don't use that, um, and you say credit cards in a lot of
countries, then they're actually not going to be relevant and you create
barrier for them to actually pay.
So there are different type of layers.
Some is more than the others.
Some is kind of like you will actually become a barrier for them to use them.
Some is actually, um, some.
Of those mistakes, just creating something that actually would not allow
you to kind of, um, provide another layer of growth, for example, um, not
providing the experience that they, they kind of, um, look forward to
Andy Polaine: this experience and enhancement is the, sort
of, is the third layer you said?
Yeah.
Are they, do you see those as kind of built on each other that you can't.
Do you like?
You have to kind of earn the respect or, or earn the right to sort of be
even interacting or be in a marketplace by those other layers before you
can kind of get to the enhancement.
The enhancement layer.
Yeah.
Chui Chui Tan: So the book, I have three layers.
So one layer is about the respect and the second layer is about the basic customer
experience where you kind of provide.
The right addressed format or name, formatting first name, last
name first, and all those things.
And then the last one was the, the biggest one, but actually the most
important one, the enhancement.
Um, it doesn't have to be like one layer to the others, but the respect
one, I would imagine it has to be.
Yeah, you have to get it right first.
Um, otherwise, like you move into a new neighborhood and you didn't have that
respect, it's hard for you to do anything else to kind of gain that trust and so on.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
Chui Chui Tan: But the rest, it's actually, um, it could be done.
Um, concurrently or actually, um, progressively as well.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, it's very subtle.
A lot of this too, I mean, you know, we are talking an example here where I think
probably in our heads, well in, in my head, you know, there's an example of say
a kind of a western, you know, or American company moving into somewhere like China.
But I know in Australia, for example, where there's.
And so I'm British, but I lived in Australia for, I'm also a Australian
now, I lived in Australia for a long time and it probably took me
about two years I think, of being there before I really clicked.
I thought, oh actually this is a different culture because you know, they're speaking
English, they've got the queen's head on their, their money at the same time.
There's a lot of kind of American influences there as well, and it sort
of feels like, oh, I know this and I watch lots and lots of companies.
So come into Australia, do that classic thing of, oh, we are gonna show them
how these Aussies, how to do this, you know, from Europe or America.
And then sort of leave two years later scratching their
heads and one was Starbucks.
So Australia has a very, very.
Strong, thriving coffee culture there.
I mean, very kind of, you know, baristas, kind of carefully measuring
everything and, and that, you know, people are very particular about
the coffee and it's, it's very good.
And Starbucks came and set up in the middle of kind of the, uh, you
know, CBD Bigs of Glass thing and just kind of vowed they, they, they
moved, I can't remember how long it lasted, but it just couldn't kind of.
Get the idea that, you know, that's not what coffee meant to Australians.
And this was, it was always interesting for me, the moment it happened for me,
where I had that kind of switch was someone saying to me, oh, you know,
we were standing by around a barbecue.
I remember this.
They said, I'm really looking forward to Christmas and the summer holidays.
And I was like, oh my God, you've had a very different childhood to me.
You know?
And there's this sort of moment of realizing everything was, in
fact very different and different values and all of those things,
but kind of very subtle shifts.
You mentioned, um, you know, ordering things in to match those markets or
to kind of, you know, uh, get the, make sure you're not offending to
gain respect and all the rest of them.
Um, and actually one of the examples you gave was around Pixar and I found
that I, you know, 'cause there's a lot of work obviously to do that.
Do you wanna talk about the Pixar example?
'cause I, I think it Sure.
It's a really nice example of exactly what you're talking about.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
I think it's a nice example and quite easily related to it.
Right.
Um, so yeah, Pixar is very much, they actually have a, I think I'm
watching a documentary about them.
I saw they have a localizations, um, team as well to look into all these elements.
So the examples I was given giving in my book and some of
my talks is, um, inside out.
I think they have inside out too now.
But the inside out oneand that we are talking about, so Riley, the little girl.
Um, so there are scenes that I, um, you can see that her
dad is trying to fit her broco.
And this is, most of us actually see this scene.
So a lot of them actually, um.
Riley was being fed by the dad, um, broccoli, and she has
this disgust, um, feeling like, ew, I don't want to eat that.
But actually, um, in Japan, they actually see a very, very different
view, um, because they found out that broccoli actually, like by the.
Kids in Japan, for some reason they loved it.
So that doesn't, that doesn't really much to that kind of perceptions of kids.
Doesn't like broco.
So they did some research into it and they realized that actually, um, kids
in Japan didn't like, um, green pepper.
So they changed that scene and they are quite, um, I think it's, there are 26
shoots that they actually changed just for that, um, that scene, um, to change that.
And then not just that they have, I think there's another scene quite,
um, commonly known is the dad Rileys, that actually was watching ice
hockey, um, in one of the daydreams.
But actually in a lot of other markets we see.
Soccer or football, whatever, whichever we call.
So, um, Pixar is very, very good in kind of finding out different things.
Sometime it's just about, you know, like experience relevancy, but
sometime it's more about the language to make it easier, like conversion.
Sometime it's about the respect.
Again, some words you actually shouldn't be mentioned in that
country because of the religions.
Um, reason.
So they remove that.
Or the sign you can see at the background that we might not even pay attention to.
They will change that as well, um, to assign or symbol
that actually relate to them.
Yeah, Pixar is very good examples of, you know, even small things actually
create emotions, attachment, um, to the products or the, the things that you
create that is very important as well.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
So, you know, in, in something like a film like that, obviously it, it creates
a lot more work for 'em 'cause they have to kinda re-render the shots and things.
But on the other hand it's, it's a kind of one thing, once they've
finished it, it sort of goes out there in the world and it.
You know, it has different formats, but it doesn't really change for
other companies, um, where they're, you know, it's, they're involved in,
uh, providing services and there's many, many more kind of touch points.
It's more complex.
Um, you talked before about sort of finding this, is there a kind
of sweet spot between how much you.
You can do before it becomes unmanageable.
Mm. And, and, you know, by what criteria do you decide okay,
that's, that's just enough?
Or, um, is it just a kind of budget thing?
Or is it, is there somewhere where it's, um, 'cause I can imagine, so I
guess where I'm going with this is I can imagine if you make it too complex, you
can run the risk of missing something.
Mm. Right.
The more complex it becomes, the more chance of making
mistakes in some respects.
You know, so is there a kind of bell curve there?
And there's a sweet spot in the, in the middle.
Chui Chui Tan: Mm-hmm.
Um, very good questions.
And so.
Always have to start from somewhere, right?
Like I think, um, I was talking to a CPO of a company and then she said
like, this is very overwhelming.
Like, where do I even start?
Right?
Um, a c, C, right?
That's CPO and, and so on.
So I kind of like step back and say, say okay.
To me it's quite systematic and know how, how to do it, when to stop and, and so on.
Um, but I can imagine that it's actually one.
Hearing all the things I say, you should consider this and that.
It could sounds, sounds like, oh yeah.
It's quite, um, quite scary.
And so I think.
One thing that, um, one misperception I want to clear out for now, um, to
start with is a lot of people have these misperceptions that they only needs
to think about culturalization when they are ready to go to a new market.
So they say, okay, don't talk to me first.
Like, I will let me sort out my UK market first, for example, and
then, um, I will get in touch again once I ready for the new market.
It's actually quite risky to do that because, you know, ultimately your.
Your service, it has to grow somewhere because if you're only one market, you are
actually go going to be quite restricted in terms of your growth and like it or
not even you're not in other markets.
You have users from other markets using your products in this country or, yeah.
Yeah.
You not even like organically grow up, um, into other markets.
So it's very important for CEO and to start with all the, um, any startup
to, to have this mindset of global mindset so that you can set up your
product and business proposition from the very beginning that is easily
adaptable in the future for other markets, so that you don't have to
rebuild everything, so you don't have to rethink your value propositions because
it's so hard to convert into other.
Culture or add value.
So it's very important to have that.
And if you have that mindset to kind of help you on your.
Very early strategy and also throughout the process that you
make decisions with your team.
It's good to have all this mindset, global mindset to start with.
So once you're ready to go, it's actually easy.
You don't have to kind of go back game.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
So you get sort of culturalization debt otherwise where you kind
of have prepared the ground.
Yeah.
Chui Chui Tan: So there's one example.
One, one project, a startup, actually they did in the right
way, where I work with the, the.
Their health related startup, and they know that because the investors
are from other countries, they say.
You start off in the uk, but eventually we want you to go to other places.
So, because it is medical related, we did some research in the uk, but all the
outputs, very, very NHS focused, right?
NHS way of like doing this, um, you know, like.
Pregnancy.
You have, I think 16 weeks before you start going checking and you, you call it,
um, yeah, you have a very different way of managing the whole pregnancy, for example.
But once you move to other country, it's very different.
So if they set their value pro position and also their content in
a certain way, then it's actually really hard in the future to do that.
So, yeah, you need to think about it from the very beginning.
So you build a system in the right way rather than.
Really hard to kind of convert in the future.
So yeah, that is a very starting point.
Andy Polaine: I was just wondering, you know, out of all the things,
'cause you talk in quite a lot of detail about how to set up the research
and how to work with local people.
You have that sort of glocal.
Thing going on, which is sort of the space you operate in of that sort of
global, local and the partnerships.
There's a lot in there and it's very, very useful, very, very tactical for people.
I can't wait to share it with my students.
I have a lot of international students, actually mostly international students
and some kinda really interested, and they often want to do something around
their own communities, around their kind of own ethnic or country communities.
Um, and I think it would be really, really useful.
Obviously incredibly useful for companies.
You know, there's been this whole conversation in design recent about,
you know, the death of UX research.
Mm-hmm.
And, you know, everything is, you know, research is being in, in the product
world, research just sort of being pushed under products and all the rest of it.
But there's clearly a case for two things here.
One is I think you really lay out the case for why actually having
specialists who know what they're doing is really important and not
just, you know, anyone can do research.
Everyone should kind of do a little bit, I think, but not everyone
can do research at the level of kind of cultural nuance there.
Can you talk a little bit about the difference between someone like you
doing this and you know, a product owner or someone saying, well, you know,
I, I, I can do some of that, or, you know, we could just a couple of people.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
I think it's two layers, right?
Like the thing you mentioned earlier, like, we see so many out there,
like people saying researcher.
Should be the one doing research because other people can do
it, but it's not to the extent.
So that is the standard research we are talking about.
But when you add to the cultural.
Elements, there's another layer, which is even more complicated.
Even the normal researcher might actually
Andy Polaine: struggle with it.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
The researcher that actually doing the normal research might not even
consider because it's a second layer of complexity that you have, so yes.
It comes with experience, but also the mindset as well, um, in terms
of how you see things slightly differently and know what to look into.
So it's from my experience or from the very beginning when I do
international research and I kind of.
I'm a researcher.
I'm a good researcher, but then there's some elements that I didn't know
already if I compare it now that I know.
Okay.
If you go to, for example, Japan, what are the things that you, I already know
some of the behaviors and the culture elements that I know for this company,
because it's talking about working.
Um, tools like, uh, work, work management tools, and there are
elements that I can bring in already hierarchical and things like that.
But when I work with, for example, Spotify on in the same market, I know actually
it's a, it's a different one from Asana when I work on work management tool, that
the things that, the cultural insights and nuances that is important for.
Asana might not be for Spotify anymore and vice versa and so on.
So it's kind of, and then knowing those kind of cultural nuances that might impact
the people's behavior for this company.
Before you go into research, it's very useful because then you actually
have a better idea where you want to dig deeper into it, how, what
kind of questions you might want to kind of put it into the discussion
guide and prop more into as well.
Yeah.
Because it's relevant to that market, uh, knowing that the
mobile data is very expensive from that market, how is it going to
influence, you know, things like that.
So, very beginning when I do my re um, internet research, I didn't know that.
I just like going in and trying to hear any differences and new.
Um, nuances that I can pick up so that we can say, okay, this is very different.
So that comes with experience in terms of picking out what to do.
But then, like my book was doing, my book, this book is, there's big
part of, it's very tactical, like you say, it's practical in the thing.
So even.
I, I wanted to write another book, more strategic, but I kind of like,
maybe I find a balance onto that a sec.
But this tactical bits, like, like I, I got, uh, put in a book like from the
project management side, like to choose who you should kind of pick to work with
to start with and also, um, when you kind of plan for your timeline and timing.
You have time differences.
Not just that, but you have different culture and festivals.
You have things that they are, they care about Ramadan.
That is happening, then you need to know what to do and what
not to do, and organize your, your researching differently.
And then to the point of how you brief your moderators, your teams and, and
then how you brief interpreters and, um, translators because they're important.
So there are a lot small elements within all this, um, is very important.
Yeah.
Andy Polaine: There's a thing that strikes me this, and it's sort of unsurprising
in, in many respects, you know, there's a lot of relationship to accessibility.
The of the, you know, it's very different for someone who's a sighted person to.
Design something for someone visually impaired and kind of read all the
literature and sort of try and do that versus having someone who's
visually impaired actually be on that team and kind of tell them
about the sort of reality of it.
You know?
'cause there's similar kind of, I think, cultural relationship.
There's a thing that struck me though in that example where, you know, an
oxo, I dunno if you know, the, the people who make kind of kitchen Yeah.
Um, utensils.
Yeah.
Sort of famously there's that idea of if you make it good for those people.
You actually make it good for everyone else.
Can you think of any examples where you've, there's been like an adjustment
or an insight that from, 'cause often we're sort of talking about a company
and like I said, it's often a US or sort of European company moving into
another culture where there has been an insight in that, uh, ization moment
where they've gone, actually, you know what, that should flow the other way.
What the changes we've made here for this particular culture or this market
would actually be really beneficial if we kind of pushed it back to the, the
original market and it goes the other way.
Chui Chui Tan: Mm. So that is kind of like the thing about identify, not
just differences, but similarities.
Right.
Because that is quite similar.
Yeah.
Like you, you go to other markets you say, oh, that is very different.
And then can that apply to any other markets as well?
So that actually grow that, so for example, with Spotify in the western
markets, we have the individual plans and, and family plans and so on.
So you have monthly payment, but in, in country, like we, we
identify like for example, um.
Indonesia, for example, like, or actually Philippines to start with.
People actually care about paying things as, think I mentioned in my book.
Like people like to pay things in a small sachet.
Garlic, you buy too clothes.
S culture.
Yeah, sachet mentality.
Um, because they don't want to waste it from, you know, from the history.
They don't, they so care about.
Just taking what they want or buying what they want or need.
Um, so that mentality is still here, even though the wealth is actually
better, um, in a lot of, um, yeah.
Areas, but because it's what they family.
So this actually, this, um, this behavior or mentality move into.
Digital as well when they think about paying music.
But I'm not going to listen to music in two days in this week or three
days next week because I'm busy.
So, but I'm paying for the whole month and I'm wasting, and I'm not
taking the best value out that.
So they have this mentality.
So one of the things that came out after that is how do we actually have this?
Propositions that help them to, to overcome this Sasha mentality.
So they came up with a mini plan.
Mini plan is where you can play per day or per week.
And you say, oh, next week I'm gonna listen to music a lot.
I'm going to pay with that first.
And then so they can pick and choose, don't feel like they wasted.
And then we realized actually there are a lot, other markets actually have similar
mentality mindset, but also because the way that they being paid monthly, uh.
Their salary is not being paid monthly.
It's biweekly or daily.
Yeah.
So this kind, this kind of proposition or plan is actually useful for them as well.
So we start to kind of, Spotify started to kind of, um, look into which
market is actually better, so kind of spread out to other markets as well.
So this is kind of examples.
You look in one and actually there's a similarities that you can actually can
spread out to other markets as well.
It might not be all markets, but there are certain markets that you can look into.
Andy Polaine: No, but I can imagine, I mean, the thing that comes to mind
for me, you know, here is the idea of, of teenagers on a kind of prepay plan.
Mm-hmm.
Who's maybe got kind of pocket money in part that pocket money is to
be spent on those kinds of things, rather than the parents just kind of
paying the subscription or whatever and, and that they might want to kind
of eke it out in a different way.
I can see that.
Chui Chui Tan: But of course it's like they probably, there's options.
Um, there's a possibility to do that.
But as a business, you probably need to see how much conversion would be
like, you might capture the market share like this little, but then
it's actually not worthwhile because there's complications on logistic and
also licensing and things like that.
So it's always balance between the culture and also the business.
Andy Polaine: So this brings me on to the next thing actually, because you
know, yes there is a lot of tactical stuff in the book, but there's also.
This whole kind of aspect of, um, strategic research versus
tactical research and how to.
How to sort of take one brief that's very tactical and and be more strategic.
And I thought it was a very kind of valuable thing actually.
'cause I think a lot of, well, I hear quite a lot of stories of people feeling
like they're a bit boxed in by the brief as a research and they really wanna do
more strategic stuff, but can't, you know, they're not getting the brief.
Mm. Yeah.
What's your approach to, to sort of pushing upstream a little bit more?
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
So yeah, I always say that it's as, it's good to do tactical, but at the same
time, if you, if you want to being seen more valuable to your stakeholders or
to the business, it's actually good to have input into the strategic insights.
Um, so examples that I, I actually gave in the book as well is.
That, you know, for example, if you're asked or tasked to do a, um,
tactical risk usability test, go and test this pricing is, is working for
this market or this payment is good.
Um, you could do that, but at the same time you could also.
I want to see like sneak in is the right word, but
Andy Polaine: I think it's fair enough
Chui Chui Tan: you can put in some, include some, some strategic information
so that you can get a more tax strategic insight for the um, company.
So for example, talking about pricing and also um, like how they
go about paying so you can actually.
Understanding how people in that culture view value, um, their willingness,
willingness to pay what actually, um, increase their willingness to pay.
So for example, in India, there's this culture of I need
to share with other people.
So anything I paid that I can be shared with other people, like paying
for video streaming is actually more willingness than music because.
Video, your whole family can see it.
You don't feel like, yeah, you're being selfish.
Yeah.
You pay for it.
Everyone can, but music is personal.
Should I pay it because, um, it's only me going to, um, use it and,
uh, enjoy the, the benefits of it.
So there's all this value.
Uh, how this perceive value is very strategic because it's not just about,
um, information is inform your pricing strategy, but also inform your, your
other propositions that you can put it in on how to make things more
appealing to them to want to be able to pay off, uh, can justify to pay.
So you in, you can include all those questions and to understand
the reason behind of their decisions of those pricing.
Decisions that they made and start gathering that.
Um, every single tactical research you did, you gather some strategy insights.
As you grow them, you actually can start to see bigger pictures in that
instance and these other things that might open up to the businesses say,
oh, we did never heard about that.
Maybe we should do more research in that area so that we can do that.
So yeah, that is kind of a trick.
Really to, to do more than you ask to show yourself.
Andy Polaine: I really like to, I mean, I think sneaking it in is, is
fine to say, 'cause you know, I like the idea that you're not asking for
permission here really, and that you're speaking to someone for, I
don't know, for an hour or whatever.
Anyway, you might as well kind of ask 'em some of that stuff.
But also this idea that you dunno what you don't know, right?
So if you're just asking some stuff, you, and it's very narrow.
You, you never have that experience of finding out stuff you didn't know.
And by including some of that strategic stuff, I guess you can go back and
go, well here's the answer to the questions you asked me to kind of
find out, but actually I've, here's some other stuff which suggests maybe
we were asking the wrong questions or there's something else out there
that we didn't even kind of consider.
Yeah.
Um, and that's very powerful and I think that's really powerful.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
And also you, you.
You don't have to rely on that specific user testing sessions to gather this.
Yeah, you can do some desk research if you are actually interested in services.
I think very interesting and about pricing.
Maybe I can do a bit of desk research myself to find out is there any more
questions that I, or angle that I haven't thought of that I should bring
it in to help you to guide that as well as a starting point of conversations.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, when I hear all of this, and I know this is,
this is a problem for my students.
I've seen it, you know, firsthand in projects I've worked on.
Uh, it seems to be sort of massive problem.
Now.
A lot of research teams, they'll use some kind of platform.
A lot of them use Notion as the storehouse with their stuff, and part of the
problem with something like Notion is.
It's USP is the kind of lack of friction to make a page and make
a sub page and sub sub page.
It's really easy, but that's also, its Achilles heel, right?
'cause everyone can just chuck stuff in there.
How much time do you spend on.
I dunno if this is really research ops, but you know, how much time do you
spend on the kind of curation and making sure that, you know, the data is Yeah.
Is curated and whether it's kind of tagged or placed or kind of stored in
a way that people can access it and, and that it makes sense and so forth.
'cause a thing I hear quite often is teams do a whole bunch of research.
And then it sort of gets forgotten about and the company just carry on
doing whatever they're doing anyway.
And then you get caught in that catch 22 because of, well, there's not
really much value in the research and it, it's partly 'cause they didn't
bother to kind of connect that up.
You know, they, they're faced with a load of data, but they don't really know
how to do the, both the synthesis and analysis and analysis and synthesis part.
As well as the communication part of it for it to be useful at the other end.
Mm-hmm.
They sort of get a bit disconnected.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
I think there are two parts in your question, isn't it?
One is presenting it and then because when you're creating
an output, you can straightaway create something that is actually.
Usable right away and then easily to, to be stored.
And then the second part is like how do you, where or how do you store it?
So the first part is very important.
Like in my book, I didn't talk about like how to present in the nice way and like
graphics and things like that because that is quite standard, um, like storytelling.
But the other parts that is really important when it comes
into reporting culturalization related information is too.
To be able to kinda link the output that you get from your participants, make it
relatable to your, uh, stakeholders so they are more able to kind of receive it.
So you, um, the example is like, for example, you spend 10 hours,
20 hours in doing research and looking into all data, everything.
And then the stakeholders is only have an hour for them to understand and receive
it and to kind of feel what you feel about the, the, the locals and everything.
So you have to empathize them.
Just to know where they're coming from and the decisions
they need to make and and so on.
So you use Metaphor for example, that there are a few tricks that I use, you
use Metaphor that they can relate to.
You use things that they're familiar with, like in this market you do this,
but in the other market they actually doing this because you know, like
kind of relate them and then you can, depending on the stakeholders and how
much they want, the detail is because it.
Every single individuals actually want different thing.
I work with a chief growth officer that will want every single
stories of each participants as well as the high level stories.
So they want the details and big, but then some of them just
want to know the main story, just tell main story and what to do.
So you need to pick and choose which one, and similarities and differences as well.
So you can have a big report, you can a summary, you can have
highlights and things like that.
You want to be able to store it easily.
The second bit of a storing is very, depending on the company I work with,
they might have their own way of doing it.
So I probably wouldn't be as much, uh, influence in terms of how they do that.
But if I get to kind of get into the smaller company, like talking about
how they should do that, um, a lot of times I kind of make sure that they.
Have a easier way to kind of put in similarities and differences.
And also as the new markets that they do non-research in, there's a
easier way for them to add it in so that you make the insights become
a clearer puzzles if you like.
Andy Polaine: Yeah,
Chui Chui Tan: so think about it like you have insights from research A, you put
it in a few puzzles, and then you have research B, you have more, so you kinda
add the whole picture bigger and bigger.
So find a way to do that as well.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
You talk about a whole range of methods actually in the book and you know, there's
some qualitative and quantitative, you know, there is that, that big picture
sometimes, like what's the top five or what's the one number or, or that
kind of stuff can be often the case.
I, my experience being, the thing I always say is that I think that
stories are what convince people.
Right.
And can they stick with people?
And you talked about metaphors, and I love metaphors, and those are
the things that people carry with them and they're really compelling.
But the, the numbers or the sort of facts and figures give people to
permission to believe in the story.
But if you just have the numbers on their own, you're kind of missing a whole lot.
And if you just have the story on their own, you're also missing.
Has that been your experience or is, is your experience different?
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah, um, it's very much so.
I think if you do qualitative research, then story is very
good because you have all the.
Photos and things like that to accompany it so people can see,
oh, this is their environment.
Rather than, like you say over Christmas, like if you take a photo of
Christmas, it's like snow and everything.
And then you say Christmas in Australia is like barbecue and things like that.
So it's, you can actually see and feel it.
Um, so.
Qualitative, sorry, is very important.
Sometimes, um, people tend, uh, some clients or some researcher tends to
want to say, two out of six participants say that, or four out of five.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
Chui Chui Tan: That sometime is not strong enough.
Sometimes it's good indication, but it's not strong enough to say the figure.
So unless you have statistic that you can pull in from.
Internal statistic or data that you have.
You work with the companies data scientists to say, can we pull
informations about this and that?
And then say, actually this is aligned with our, our data
internally as well as your stories.
Then that will be.
Very powerful.
Or sometimes you say, actually it's not aligned, but why?
Then the why is really interesting and you say, ah, maybe because when
they're doing that, we collecting data, we call it in a different way.
There's other way or the other way around, so, so that kind of
data is really, really useful.
If you only do quantitative, then you have a lot of data, you have
a lot of numbering and so on.
But there again, you lack of this.
Story, it's very hard to create a story with just quantitative.
Yeah.
So a lot of times, um, actually when we see quantitative is useful is
when it pair up with qualitative.
Yeah.
Do one.
The order could be different from where you are at that stage and how much you
know, and also the scope of the research.
Sometime you do quant first and then you do qual.
Sometimes it's the other way around.
Makes more sense.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
Relying on quant data on its own seems like a great way to
completely miss cultural context.
Yeah.
Because you're not getting that, uh, human part.
Chui Chui Tan: You can explain why.
Andy Polaine: Yeah.
Apart from, apart from hiring you of course and buying your book, what, what
are the kind of first steps if you are, I know with you UX search or if you're
kind of in the C-suite of a, of a company, what would be the sort of the first small
step they could do in this direction?
Chui Chui Tan: Um, I always say that when I go into a new company,
like, oh, where do we even start thing, which I want to come back,
uh, about the CPO that mentioned overwhelming very quickly later on.
Um, but if you are kind of very beginning of that, um, you can
say, okay, we have limited budget.
Like we can just go out and do big research and so on.
Yeah.
Actually relevant to dissipate or, um, conversations is like
you can actually start small.
Right.
First of all, it is actually very important if you haven't done so in your
organization, is to sit down and bring in all the knowledge you have about.
A market first, um, saying, okay, we have a bit of data.
Let's say you're already in that market but it's not doing very well,
and so on and go through all the data informations you might be able to collect.
Is there any other way you can think about how you analyze data?
Because sometimes data is that you can find a different way to
analyze them so that it's actually become more useful for you.
Um, all the insights and everything.
In my book, I have a, uh, four buckets, um, exercise that I mentioned.
Mm. That is very useful to bring all the knowledge together, all the assumptions
people have, especially C-level say, yeah, I think they work like this and
we should just do decisions like that.
And, and a lot of them are very subjective view or stereotype or certain thing.
So bring all of them together.
Go through that exercise.
Four buckets is non facts, strong hypothesis, weak
hypothesis, and then unknowns.
Put them in the right buckets, but make sure that the facts are in facts.
So, questions about the sources.
Um, the.
Um, validity.
Mm-hmm.
Like how long ago that this insights was provided, because things might change.
And so to make sure that anything in effect you can actually take actions,
that that's why you have to make sure they are really, really sure.
If you're not sure, put them in a strong hypothesis because then you'll kind
of find certain way to say how else we can validate or invalidate that.
Yeah.
And so on.
Yeah.
Start from there.
And then you have informations about do we even need to do research or what type of
research, how big the research should be.
If we call it all this and we do one off research, could we answer
a lot of these questions already?
Can we do that stretch a bit?
Budget to do that?
Yeah.
So it's kind of like finding the balance, um, of all of them and
see where that actually comes in.
It doesn't have to be like.
Big, um, overwhelming.
It could start somewhere.
And if, let's say you say, oh, we have very small teams, and oh, this
insight is enough for us to mix.
A roadmap for now, and that is fine.
And then you probably see some growth, leave it and then see some growth.
And then you might want to focus on other markets in the meantime
and then come back to this again.
It's fine, um, to do that.
It's a progressive journey so you don't have to make sure that you do
everything right, um, in one goal.
Andy Polaine: So how did you, uh, respond to the CPO who said
this is all too overwhelming?
Chui Chui Tan: It's so interesting.
Actually, I have one hour session with her.
After that, and we go back to the questions like there were in a few
countries already and just like, how do you even start choosing which
country to go into and to focus next?
Just like, uh, don't know, like maybe we just guess and because this language
is easier for us to get into and just like, okay, there's another exercise
I normally do with client to choose.
This is not in the book actually.
Um, which market is actually, uh, for you to go into?
Either to launch or to focus on, uh, to put more money to focus on.
So it's essentially, it's looking into potentials and opportunities
versus, um, efforts and frictions.
Um, and then within that there are a few elements that you need to look into,
um, to make sure that it's correct.
So yeah, I mentioned about that.
And then we kind of go back step for backwards as well.
And because the questions that she asked, um, during the sessions was.
We have all this data, we want the market or do the marketing,
how do we do the marketing?
I just like, well step back.
Why do you want to do the marketing?
What insights and things like that.
So a lot of companies very focused on a specific question, what should we do now?
Like, do, should we just do marketing very well?
Should we just change the products?
And, but there are a lot of things you need to step up back and ask
the right question and to do that.
Andy Polaine: Yeah, yeah, you can kind of see the pressure for kind of
speed and, uh, let's just do a thing.
What's the simple thing we need to do?
And, and then we'll just market it and that, and that's it.
Yeah, hey look, I could talk to you for ages about this 'cause I find it really
fascinating and, you know, people and cultures always very fascinating too.
But we are coming up for time.
The show is called Power of 10 'cause it's based on this
Eames film called Powers of 10.
It's about the size of relative size of things in the universe and
you know, people can Google it and find it's, it's really fascinating.
But it's really about this idea of operating at different zoom levels.
And I think one of the things you've been talking about is, you know, there
are cultural things and they are sort of evidenced in very detailed ways.
You know, and I think it's always interesting in a mostly globalized world
where you go somewhere else, especially in Europe, I goes to another European
country and it's kind of like the same as every other European country
except for small things like, you know, the post boxes or the shape of milk
bottles and, and those kinds of things.
And cultural norms, of course.
So the, the very final question is, uh, what one small thing is either overlooked
or could be redesigned that would have an outsized effect on the world?
Chui Chui Tan: Um, I think for me it's this notion I haven't really, I have this,
this thinking, but I haven't actually expanded myself to see what does that
actually mean, because that might be a second book that I want to write about.
Cultural elements, um, not just on business, but also politics
and, you know, culture in sense.
But I think it's the notions of we are all human, right?
Um, we are on the same species and it feels like we are
very, very, very different.
Which is true.
We are different in certain ways.
One country.
Share the same things for the other, but not the other thing,
the other culture elements.
So there are differences for sure, but we are all the same human species.
The reason we are different is because.
Hundred thousand, hundred thousand years ago.
Like we kind of ancestor kind of evolved very differently in different environment.
So that changed their, our gene, their skin color, their, where everything
that we have, um, and the language.
And then, I don't know, when the whole border things start off, um, and people
start to become, oh, you are there.
I'm here.
And you know.
The human evolutions, I guess, and it's, it's all start from the same thing, but
it's just evolved slightly differently.
Just like a family member, you go to a different culture
to grow up different way.
Then your cousin might be slightly different from you, but
they're also the same family.
You see what I mean?
So I'm kind of like, especially in this world that so many discriminations
or you know, the culture people, I'm just thinking about actually we are,
we are different, but we actually also the same, the reason we are
different is because if evolutions, um.
Slightly differently.
I think it's kind of like, I think the small thing that you're talking
about is, is actually quite big in the notions of we're at the
same, but you see what I mean?
It's really hard to, um, describe that at the moment.
Yeah.
But I just, it's, it's the, it's the whole thing of we kind of need
to be just emphasize why people are different and see, be open about
it rather than criticize each other for the differences that we have.
Yeah.
Andy Polaine: It's like when astronauts talk about the overview effect, you
know, when you, they see the world, you know, from space and it's,
you can't see any borders, right?
Yes.
And all you just see is this fragile thing protected by this fragile layer
of atmosphere that keeps us all alive.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah, exactly.
And it changes and we breathe.
It's the same airways.
We drink the same water, sea, sea water.
You know, it's, it's the same.
It's just, um.
Yeah.
If we have all those in that perceptions, we cannot accept, everyone will.
There's no right or wrong way to do things Everyone's, it's everyone's way
to do things, so be more acceptable.
Uh, open to learn about that.
Andy Polaine: That is a very big, small thing.
Chui Chui Tan: I know.
I'm sorry.
Um, so where can
Andy Polaine: people find you online and where can people find your book as well?
Chui Chui Tan: I'm most active in on LinkedIn, so, um, can find me on my name
and connect if you like, or get in touch.
Um, I, my website is beo.global.
BEYO do global.
Um, I have some content and also all the works I have done, um,
in the past that, um, because every end of each year I reach.
A summary round up for everyth, things that I have done for that year.
So I didn't do it first year, and then I started doing that
for the rest of the year.
So I have probably have five, six of them there.
So it's very details of every work that I have done.
Um, and then my book, I have this book here, um, it's on, you can find on Amazon.
Um, on your, uh, your area or country or regions or Apple books, if you don't
really want to buy it from Amazon,
Andy Polaine: I'll put all the links in the show notes for people to find you.
Thank you.
Are you active on any other socials anywhere or is it linked in this person?
No, I'm just
Chui Chui Tan: LinkedIn for now.
I, I'm on Twitter, but I don't tweet.
Um, where else, I dunno.
I'm, I'm, I'm kind of in between social and also.
Yeah.
Private.
Yeah.
One is enough for me.
Andy Polaine: It's probably, uh, it's probably wise.
Chui Chui Tan: Yeah.
Andy Polaine: Thank you so much for being, uh, my guest on Power of 10.
Chui Chui Tan: No, thank you so much for having me.
Andy Polaine: You've been watching and listening to Power of 10.
You can find more about the show on pauline.com where you can also check
out my leadership coaching practice online courses, as well as sign up
for my irregular newsletter doctor's note, and I'll put all the links.
In the notes too.
If you have any thoughts, then please put them in the comments or get in touch.
You'll find me as at AP Lane on PKM Social.
You'll find me on LinkedIn or my website.
Thanks for listening and watching, and I'll see you next time.