This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 14, 2025 - April 20, 2025

Facing increasing challenges with internal communication in the mid-2010s, ByteDance sought a more effective solution. Despite experimenting with various collaboration tools, the company struggled to overcome productivity-sapping silos and improve workflow efficiency.

Realising it needed something better, ByteDance decided to create its own solution: an all-in-one platform combining chat, video conferencing and more. That effort led to the creation of Lark Suite.

While the productivity platform was initially designed to meet ByteDance’s own needs, it soon caught the attention of other businesses. Launched in April 2019, it is now used by companies around the world to streamline workflow and embrace digital transformation. Among them are local coffee chain Zus Coffee, tech multinational Xiaomi and used-car marketplace Carro.

The proprietary tool accelerates digitalisation by enabling companies to replace outdated, inefficient tools and promoting the adoption of digital solutions in business operations.

Mark Dembitz, general manager of Lark Asia Pacific, says Lark allows for chatting, video conferencing and spreadsheet processing concurrently.

“There is more appetite for risk taking and growth, and there is less of being beholden to the past, or to something comfortable that already really works. It’s about having this advanced sense of questioning how to grow faster, how to leapfrog and not be held back by being comfortable,” he adds.

Due to developments that focused on filling collaboration gaps, many of Lark’s features were modelled around digital communication functions, which in turn helped spur digital transformations.

For instance, Lark was designed with mobile devices in mind, ensuring optimal compatibility with modern smartphones. It performs tasks seamlessly, rivalling the capabilities of a laptop, while preserving mobility — a key feature demanded by Gen Z.

Dembitz explains that the once-standard emails have become less efficient, with many opting to text or call for convenience.

He says prioritising texting and chatting as the initial mode of contact streamlines workflows, unlike emailing, which often involves formalities before addressing the main objective.

“If you have a chat-first mindset, it’s a lot less formal and a lot faster. You don’t have to [respond] to something formally. It’s more conversational, more natural and that helps a lot [with communication].

“ByteDance has over 100,000 [employees globally] today, and nobody writes emails internally. I’ve been at ByteDance now for two years and I think I can count on the fingers of two hands how many emails I’ve received internally,” he adds.

Lark, being a no-code platform, allows for customisation based on the needs of each company. Dembitz says while software programming is often a barrier to entry when implementing digital tools, with the emergence of low-code and no-code services, accessibility has been growing.

The platform offers different automations that enable users to customise functions modelled around the collaborative gaps within their company.

“We have customers who have built a customer resource management system out of Lark Base. We have customers who have built a mini enterprise resource planning system, and we have customers who have built content management systems and content store systems out of Lark Base,” says Dembitz.

Lark is compatible with cross-border communication, especially if different languages are involved. If a company headquartered in Malaysia is scheduled to have business meetings with a representative from a different country, the language translation feature can act as a bridge between the two parties.

This can be seen at Paradise Group, one of Lark’s clients, which has operations in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, among others. Because of the language barrier between the countries, the client can save time and cost by using the in-house translation feature to write a shared standard of procedure in each market.

All these elements help foster inclusivity in the workforce by creating a highly integrated and productive environment. For example, in a restaurant setting, the relationship between front-of-house staff and back-line employees, such as servers and line cooks, is harmonised by enabling all team members to communicate effectively and stay on the same page.

“They feel more of a sense of belonging and that creates a much better culture for the company, one that also helps [the company] drive productivity and create a far more positive culture,” Dembitz says.

One of the biggest challenges when assisting clients with digital adoption is resistance to the idea.

He says in order to drive digital adoption in a company, a new culture of embracing new developments must be created and this effort needs to be pushed using a top-down approach.

“When I say push, I don’t just mean executives telling the company what the staff should do, but demonstrating it by using the technologies and the tools themselves, driving that this is what you are implementing, and can look at a return on investment and what productivity gains you are getting.”

Actively demonstrating the benefits of digitalisation to employees can give them a better sense of how making the change to digital technologies can bring improve workflow, which can in turn be a starting point for shifting preconceived notions.

It’s also important for businesses to cultivate a mindset that compels them to take steps in starting the digital transformation. Small and medium-size enterprises, especially, must prioritise the needs of a business if cost becomes an obstacle.

“You really have to figure out what is important for the business on that particular day and ask yourself how you can act on it. You also have to consider digital transformation as a journey, not a destination. You’re never going to reach the end, but you have to start somewhere,” he elaborates.

By gaining a deeper understanding of the gaps within their company, businesses can more effectively determine their strategic direction and concentrate on addressing specific areas of concern. This approach reduces the need to implement an excessive number of technologies, minimising the risk of tech sprawl and the complications of siloed data.

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