Commentary

The pending EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is already significantly impacting businesses across Asia. Slated for mandatory compliance by May 2018, the GDPR will drive significant requirements across all companies dealing with Europe to closely manage and track personal data information. The rules affect every entity that holds or uses European personal data both inside and outside of Europe – including Asia. Organisations need to take action now to make certain they are adequately capturing, integrating, certifying, publishing, monitoring and of course, protecting their data to ensure GDPR compliance. 

In today’s landscape of rapid changes and innovative technologies, modern organisations need to take on a new approach that will help them meet the demands of the digital world. More than ever, organisations today are under immense pressure to digitise and automate all aspects of their operations, including vital business processes that often require long hours of manual data entry.

The future of travel is social and mobile, and nowhere is this truer than in Singapore, where mobile travel sales have witnessed double-digit growth, outpacing traditional online sales and giving travel businesses a major push to invest in new mobile strategies.

Technology has changed the way retail is presented to its customers, so what do brands need to do to keep their customers happy? 

The current US administration’s desire to limit foreign imports through protectionist measures has drawn much concern from Singapore businesses, with many asking us if the US is still open for business. Our answer? A resounding YES.

PMET jobs are under threat. We know we are living in precarious times. Human beings have lost their jobs to machines ever since the Industrial Revolution and today, this is happening at an unprecedented pace.

Just as Singapore is benefiting from the invisible hand of technology, we have also ushered an era of data ubiquity where anyone – from the CEO to the intern, from professor to the student – can use that data for smarter decision-making.

Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore recently claimed: “I do hope when the fever has gone away, when the crash has happened, it will not undermine the much deeper, and more meaningful technology associated with digital currencies and blockchain." Singapore’s relationship with cryptocurrencies has been a torrid one. Menon’s wish illustrates how senior financial figures in Singapore understand both the benefits of bitcoin and its ilk, but also have serious reservations about the maturity of this asset class. 

Adoption of new robust digital travel expense and compliance models goes a long way, not only for the rising modern business traveller but also your business 

For most Singaporeans, our homes will be one of the biggest expenses we'll ever take on in our lives, whether it's a resale/BTO flat, condo or landed property. We want to treat it well, look after it and make sure it’s the best place to live it can possibly be. However – and my family can be guilty of this from time to time – the hectic pace of life can get in the way and suddenly you find objects in the wrong place, items that haven’t been useful for years taking up precious space and so much clutter that it can be almost impossible to determine your most important belongings. A customer base can become a lot like a house that needs a thorough spring clean. How many businesses, for example, can say they’re happy with the way their customer data is organised or that they can quickly find the answers they’re looking for when planning CRM strategy? Customer data is probably every business’s most prized possession, but without organisation, you miss growth opportunities, and chances to cross and upsell. Worse, not knowing what your customers want can mean they’ll leave for someone who does. Taking the time to “spring clean” those relationships can have real benefit to the bottom line. For one, it’ll help you understand your customers better, and maybe allow you to offer something more bespoke and personal. This is vital, especially when you consider the finding from an Edelman Earned Brand 2016 study which revealed Singapore’s consumer-brand relationship score fell short of the full potential (39 points out of a 100). Just as tidying up your homes before Chinese New Year visitations can help you feel ready to host your family and friends, giving your customer base a deep and thorough clean can have that same transformative effect. Not all customers are equal Without clarity and organisation, businesses can end up giving the wrong kind of client the same amount of time and attention as their most high-value – or the ones with the greatest potential to be high value. A customer spring clean, for example, could help identify who’s joined you as part of a promotional special offer. Those that have arrived looking for a deal are more likely to go somewhere else quickly, similar to how discount-hunter shoppers in Singapore behave during 11/11 or the Great Singapore Sale. So should your team be spending too much time and money on accounts that probably aren't going to stick around? Indeed, according to an Accenture study, 80% of Singapore consumers are withdrawing their loyalty to brands, and close to two-thirds have switched providers of goods and services in the last 12 months – which means it’s vital to build a real connection with those that have initially had a positive experience. Sprucing up your customer data allows you to identify the most important clients and devise bespoke communications and contact strategies that can extract more growth. It’s only by getting rid of the clutter that you can get a sense of where you might be wasting time and energy and, more importantly, where you should focus your energies better. Smarter segmentation Of course, all businesses segment their customers to some extent, but a proper spring clean will allow this to become more sophisticated, especially when aided with the right technology. Our research showed that 88% of business and IT decision-makers in Singapore are most likely to invest in technology to boost customer retention, so it’s clear that most businesses will be open to adopting innovation that helps them better retain their customers.

Singapore’s ageing population is rising rapidly and elderly healthcare support is top of the government’s agenda with several major steps already taken over the years to minimise the impact on the economy, society and national healthcare expenditure.

By leveraging technology and smart partnerships, Singapore can transcend its size and grow into Asia.

The struggle to recruit skilled workers is a recurring concern for manufacturing businesses in Singapore. A study by the Singapore Management University (SMU) and JP Morgan shows that the manufacturing sector currently faces a skills gap, which is set to widen with the move towards newer engineering fields like robotics and digital manufacturing.

The technological evolution unfolding before us is nothing short of extraordinary. Just on cognitive capabilities alone, what took living organisms more than two billion years of evolution to attain will only take advanced technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) mere decades.

Data privacy has become an increasingly pertinent issue in recent times. Currently hogging all the headlines is, of course, Facebook. It has been reported that hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the same terms as the firm that collected data and passed it on to Cambridge Analytica.

In October last year, the Singapore government passed the Infrastructure Protection Bill – laws to improve protection for iconic buildings providing essential services, with failure to do so resulting in fines of up to S$200,000 and jail of up to two years.