Under The Radar

This time, finance presenter Chua Tian Tian reports from Hong Kong, where Chinese e-commerce giant Taobao announced one of its most significant strategic shifts for its overseas business in recent years to focus on the quality and distinctiveness of products listed on its platforms. To support the shift, Taobao embarked on a comprehensive upgrade to its cross border shopping experience, with expan...

Artificial intelligence is shaking up the enterprise technology landscape and for software giant SAP, the stakes are particularly high.  After all, the German company spent over half a century building software solutions that connect core business processes from finance, supply chain management, manufacturing, human resources to even analytics in a single, integrated environment.  These...

Earlier in June, finance presenter Chua Tian Tian headed down to Miami, USA, to catch Match 71 of the FIFA World Cup and to see how global technology solutions provider Lenovo helped its organiser run the tournament seamlessly behind the scenes. But the FIFA World Cup is not the only sporting event featuring the firm’s technology.  Lenovo is also powering Formula 1 races with solutions...

Incorporated in 1993 and subsequently listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange in 1997, Samudera Shipping Line is a shipping company primarily engaged in transporting containerised and non-containerised cargo through its Container Shipping, Bulk and Tanker, as well as Agency and Logistics Business Segments.  Instead of competing with the world’s largest shipping companies by size, Samuder...

What comes to mind when you think of the phrase “flamed-grilled” burgers, or even to “have it your way”?  For over seven decades, Burger King built its identity around its freshly flame-grilled burgers and the iconic Whopper. But behind that familiar bite, is a giant food empire altogether.  The brand is part of Restaurant Brands International, a company formed in...

It’s all about how an apparel maker is redefining that pair of jeans you’re wearing today.  Finance presenter Chua Tian Tian was away for the past week attending “Levi’s Women Experience FOR EVERY ORIGINAL” series of pop-up events in Tokyo and Seoul.  The pop-up experiences aim to celebrate the women who continue to redefine originality today, and is part of...

Today we’re going to take you through a company that spent over a century building some of Asia’s most recognisable commercial properties, from the skyscrapers in Marina Bay Singapore to those in Hong Kong’s Central financial district and even the West Bund in Shanghai. With its origins dating back to 1889 in Hong Kong, our guest for today Hongkong Land is a major listed property...

In this “On the Go” Special episode of Under the Radar, finance presenter Chua Tian Tian hit the factory floor of a company that is turning 100 years old in 2026! Bingo if you’ve guessed Polar Puffs & Cakes! Then called the Polar Cafe, the firm opened the doors of its first outlet on 51 High Street in 1926, serving up curry puffs, ice-cream and chilled beverages. The cafe soo...

For decades, software applications were built around a relatively straightforward premise. Businesses stored information in structured tables, rows and columns neatly organised inside relational databases. But the internet has changed everything, with modern applications now expected to process vast amounts of structured and unstructured data, scale across millions of users and integrate with hund...

In January 2023, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, several dozen Asia-focused CEOs and senior executives of the world’s largest companies gathered for a private dinner.  The executives had commanded operations employing tens of thousands of people, with their supply chains spanning dozens of cities from Shanghai to London and Abu Dhabi.  They had invested heavily in, and also r...

Digital transformation has become one of the defining priorities for organisations over the past decade.  What began as a push to digitalise customer touchpoints has since evolved into a broader effort to rethink business models, modernise legacy technology, strengthen cybersecurity and more recently, harness the power of artificial intelligence to improve productivity and create new sources...

When you unwrap your favourite chocolate bar from one of your favourite brands, do you know who actually makes the chocolate?  You’d be surprised to find out that it may not be the company whose name appears on the wrapper.  In fact, some of the world’s biggest confectionery brands like Nestle, Mondelez and Hershey rely on specialist manufacturers, or so-called white label pr...

Some of the world’s most successful technology companies didn’t begin in gleaming corporate campuses. They began with bold ideas exchanged at the simplest of places. Sometimes, that place was a diner offering bottomless coffee and huge slabs of pancakes. For ASUS, that place was a humble coffee shop in Taipei. Back in 1989, a group of ambitious engineers came together with a vision of...

There’s nothing quite like slipping into a sturdy, yet comfortable pair of jeans for work on casual Fridays, or even when out shopping on a Monday night.  To understand why, we have to turn the clock back more than 170 years to California during the Gold Rush. Back then, miners and labourers in the American West worked under punishing conditions, and their work trousers often ripped at...

Remember the time when we would scour through magazines and newspaper articles to cut out photos and design ideas to paste on your scrapbooks for an art project?  Well, we might not do that physically these days, but millions of us still do so digitally through a platform called Pinterest. And yes, that is the company that we’re going to talk to today.  Founded in 2010, Pinterest i...

The company that we’re going to talk about today has its beginnings traced back to 1984, when a then married couple from Stanford University helped build the foundation of the Internet by inventing the first-multi-protocol router that helped to link computer networks. If Cisco comes to mind, yes, that is our guest for today. Of course, a lot has changed for Cisco in the decades since its fou...

It is the time of the year where global investment firm Temasek releases its annual financial results. To this end, the company reported a Net Portfolio Value of S$518 billion on a mark-to-market basis as at 31 March 2026, representing a doubling of its portfolio over the past decade.  Long-term returns remained resilient, with the 20-year Total Shareholder Return at 6.8% and the 10-year TSR...

Today we’re going to take you through the ins and outs of a technology company that makes the personal computers we use at work and at home.  But here’s the twist. The company was founded all the way back in 1939 when there were no fully electronic computers, and where Palo Alto, Califonia was not a Silicon Valley hub, but an area filled with fruit orchards.  Make a guess &nd...

48 teams, 104 matches and six billion fans eagerly watching what the best of football has to offer.  It is no surprise that the FIFA World Cup 2026 is the talk of the town right now.  After all, this year’s edition marks the largest in the tournament’s history, featuring 16 stadiums across Canada, Mexico and the United States. But have you wondered about the innovations power...

In this special “On the Go” episode of Under the Radar, finance presenter Chua Tian Tian headed down to Suntec Tower 3 for an interview with the leadership of a company that invented the Portable Document Format or the PDF format in 1993.  Founded close to 45 years ago in 1982 to revolutionise printing and publishing with an all-digital approach, Adobe has since evolved into a des...

Today we’re going to take you through a hotel brand that is directly linked to American personality, Paris Hilton. Yes, we’re indeed talking about global hospitality company Hilton, which boasts a portfolio of 27 world-class brands including Conrad Hotels & Resorts, Canopy by Hilton and Doubletree by Hilton. Fun fact, Paris Hilton’s great-grandfather, Conrad Hilton, or the fo...

Finance Presenter Chua Tian Tian had been under the radar for the past two weeks on her annual vacation across Asia, but she’s not coming home without bringing our listeners a little something – a Special episode of Under the Radar from AI chip darling NVIDIA’s GTC Taipei, which took place in the first week of June.  GTC Taipei 2026 brought together developers, researchers a...

Today we’re going to take you to a sleepy pocket of Japan’s countryside called Myoko. Located about a three-hour train ride from Tokyo, Myoko was said to be one of the oldest ski areas in Japan, where it once saw young skiers streaming along its neon-lit streets. That was, of course, during the economic boom back in the 1980s and 1990s, before ski-lovers swapped Myoko for other popular...

Today we’re going to talk all about a leading hospitality player who began its business as not a property owner but an A&W Root Beer franchise!  Founded by J. Willard and Alice Sheets Marriott close to a century ago in 1927, our guest for today Marriott International got its start quenching people’s thirst during the hot muggy summers in Washington D.C.  The company then...

This time, finance presenter Chua Tian Tian got up bright and early to head down to global investor Temasek’s corporate headquarters located at The Atrium@Orchard to find out more about the key happenings at Ecosperity Week 2026. Organised by Temasek, Ecosperity is the firm’s key platform for sustainability and advocacy.  Themed ‘Asia’s Race Towards 2030: Powered by In...