Lazada Inaugurates New Singapore HQ
SINGAPORE – In a move to assert a more robust Southeast Asian presence, e-commerce giant Lazada has officially unveiled its regional headquarters in the city-state on Monday, according to a recent report from The Edge.
Dubbed as Lazada One, the 109,000 sq ft office space was designed taking into account the future hybrid workplace in a bid to foster greater collaboration both within the commercial property and across its offices in the ASEAN region.
Notably, the Lazada One office building is presently available for sale for S$800 million. It is owned by local property fund manager ARA Asset Management and British real estate group Chelsfield.
Lazada is the anchor tenant of the 10-storey office tower, which comes with modern and creatively designed workspaces as well as an open concept office space with a number of private and open discussion rooms. This is in addition to stylishly designed pantries at every level.
Interestingly, Lazada’s parent company Alibaba is also occupying 31,000 sq ft of the commercial property. This means 58 percent of the workspace there are leased by Lazada and Alibaba. This is Lazada’s fourth office in Singapore.
Lazada One was formerly called 51 Bras Basah Road. Before that it was known as 5One Central and Manulife Centre. In its latest transformation, the commercial development was refurbished into a certified green building.
The opening of Lazada One, which is located in the central Bras Basah district, was officiated by Minister of Communications and Information (MCI) Josephine Teo.
She highlighted Lazada’s important place in developing the country’s thriving digital economy alongside multinational corporations (MNCs) and a large pool of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Moreover, Teo discussed the 3 main areas that the government is investing on to ensure that companies like Lazada and their talent remain relevant and competitive.
First, investments in SME digitalisation amidst the rise of e-commerce, with many SMEs now leveraging on technology platforms to sell their products and services to a bigger audience.
Second, she underscored the government’s investment in last-mile delivery infrastructure via the rollout of a network of parcel lockers, completing a milestone of 1000 pick-up lockers throughout Singapore.
“Last-mile deliveries are essential for e-commerce. This network improves the efficiency and sustainability of the last-mile delivery sector (for) consumers to pick up their parcels conveniently near their homes around the clock.”
Lastly, investments in human capital has also been a priority of the authorities. “With the global tech talent crunch, we all need to do more to ensure that our existing tech workforce remains relevant and competitive,” added Teo.
