Exclusive Interview with Somdutta Singh, Founder & CEO, Assiduus Global

E-commerce thrives on reliability and blooms on personalization which only good analytics can make possible. AI-enabled e-commerce solutions are the talk of the town for the endless benefits they offer for businesses to go places. Never before possible business strategies are taking shape and successfully yielded results all because of novel technologies like data science and artificial intelligence. Assiduus Global, an AI-enabled end-to-end e-commerce accelerator, is one of the fast-growing global e-marketplaces. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Somdutta Singh, Founder & CEO, of Assiduus Global.

1 – Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

Assiduus Global Inc. is an AI-powered cross-border, multi-platform E-commerce accelerator that launches and scales D2C brands across global E-commerce marketplaces.

Assiduus' focus is brand centricity that's cross-border driven by data and intelligence. For example, if you are buying a product from brands like Cipla, Bulletproof, Strive, and Poorna Gummies online from geographies like Japan, the US, or GCC, they are being fulfilled and managed by Assiduus globally.

Brands constantly need data and intelligence to expand and scale. We give to them and this is what makes us different.

2 – With what mission and objectives, the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?

In 2018, Assiduus founder Dr. Somdutta Singh was in the US scaling several D2C private labels that she had created to sell on digital-first platforms like Amazon and Walmart. These brands like Amplicell, The Real Boss Lady Beauty, Biotevia, and Irotica, helped her understand the key challenges of growing a brand beyond certain geography. There were challenges of regulations, integration, and language because each platform behaves differently across geographies and is compelled to follow local laws and regulations and rules on data security, etc.

She realized that cross-border was a huge challenge that people needed to overcome and selling online was an uphill task. There are multiple nuances attached to the process – understanding ranking, deciphering user data, analyzing pricing, consumer behavior, keyword, and listing automation.

These multiple facets led her to establish Assiduus Global.

3 – Mention some of the awards, achievements, recognitions, and clients' feedback that you feel are notable and valuable for the company.

Assiduus Global was recently awarded the accolade for being India's leading E-commerce accelerator partner for facilitating seamless consumer experiences and E-commerce excellence by IReC 2022, India's largest new commerce event.

Dr. Somdutta Singh has several honors under her name. 

4 – Brief us about the proactive Founder/CEO of the company and his/her contributions to the company and the industry.

Dr. Somdutta Singh is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor currently operating Assiduus global as the CEO. This is her third entrepreneurial venture. She had two highly successful multi-million dollar exits before she founded Assiduus Global.

Dr. Som has been bestowed with the coveted Times 40 Under 40 honor and featured in Fortune India's 50 most powerful business women edition. She has served as the youngest and only woman Vice-Chairperson of NASSCOM Product Council and has been the first woman of Indian origin on the Board of Philip Kotler's Kotler Impact. She has facilitated the Government of India to form the visionary Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) by NITI Aayog. She is an ardent believer in giving back to society in the form of her not-for-profit organization that invests in the youth and empowers them with digital skills in a technologically driven era. She has authored the best-selling books – Decoding Digital: Unlocking Digital Barriers and Stories from New India: Policies, Hope And Change. She is a Global Mentor at Google Launchpad and a Mentor of Change at Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), Govt of India.

Dr. Som has been presented with the India Achiever Award 2021, Impact Entrepreneur Award for Social Innovation, presented by IEEE in association with UN Women and Amity University, London. She has also been bestowed with the 2019 Mentor of the Year by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the 2017 Digital Leadership Award for Social Innovation by Times of India, and the 2017 Women Leadership Award by Economic Times.

5 – Tell us how your company is contributing to the AI/Big Data Analytics industry of the nation and how the company is benefiting the clients.

Our patent-pending (USPTO) technology acts as the middleware allowing us to analyze data from multiple marketplaces and DTC sites across borders that give us intelligence into categories, customer, purchase behavior, repeat purchase analytics, and brand competitor data. This allows us to intelligently map projections and markets for specific products for brands. Our tool helps us analyze the market opportunity, demand, market readiness for new products, competition analysis, and customer intelligence.

We deliver value through our unified order management system, warehouse management system, Integrated Shipping Platform (Marketplace + DTC), and Seller Qualifier Platform that provides crucial actionable insights.

6 – Kindly mention some of the major challenges the company has faced till now.

The first one is more of an enabler than a challenge and it goes for all women-led organizations. Although some of the largest and most profitable businesses in the world are being led and run by women, entrepreneurship remains largely male-dominated, at least that is what it is seen as. Women entrepreneurship is an untamed bastion, and investors need to look at women in the same light as men. They need to look at women as gender agnostic and based on their skills and capabilities. Entrepreneurship is not about gender equality and leadership skills alone. It's about the passion and the attitude with which a person pursues their dreams.

The second challenge that we often witness in the E-commerce landscape is that it is very fragmented. Besides the big players like Amazon, Walmart and eBay, there is no one providing formidable solutions to brands and sellers. The marketplaces are mere platforms and there is no help to brands to sell and accelerate their business without them having to spend additional money on infrastructure, technology, and human resources.

We bridge this gap. We are a one-stop E-commerce growth engine that enables brands to scale and grow exponentially and attain success on E-commerce marketplaces.

7 – What is your biggest USP that differentiates the company from competitors?

Brands need insights and intelligence, the right data sets, knowledge of the right markets, awareness of market demands, understanding of consumer affiliations, spending patterns, and repeat purchase rates. One of the elementary principles of selling on marketplaces is segmentation. One product cannot cater to different sections of people across diverse countries.

Assiduus Global is not just a distributor. We have tech integrations with E-commerce marketplaces across the globe that gives brands the added advantage of having a key partner and not just being a one-in-a-million seller on the marketplace. We have access to all the tools, understanding of the various search algorithms, and are familiar with the keywords and terms consumers use to search for specific products that help us conquer discoverability challenges.

8 – How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead?

Our future growth plan with Assiduus Global is to make it a billion-dollar revenue-generating E-commerce accelerator partner by 2025 powered by our technology. Our founder Dr. Som also wants to set an example for Asian-born women-led E-commerce accelerators and become the most preferred partner for digital-first D2C brands, enterprise D2C brands, and roll-up brands looking to go global.