Commentary

Every year there’s a new thinkpiece declaring the death of email, claiming people are moving on from this technology now that has reached middle age. Despite the naysayers, email lives on and remains a widely-used and extremely popular mode of communication – particularly for marketers in Singapore.

Retailers across the globe are reinventing the digital and physical retail experiences to cater to the modern and technology savvy customer. Facial recognition payments, service robots and digitised aisles are just some of the avenues retailers are looking into. We’re also seeing more e-commerce businesses expanding into the physical space in their own ways. According to Statista, Singapore’s e-commerce market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 14.9%, and will continue its ascent to US$8.6m by 2023. With the expansion of e-commerce, brick-and-mortar retailers are scrambling to find a middle ground between the online and digital realms as they face increased pressure and competition from their digital competitors.

Digital technology has become so deeply ingrained in our daily lives that we rely on digital devices for a spectrum of uses, from watching our favourite TV shows on-the-go, to shopping for a new outfit. In fact, consumers’ dependence on digital devices is so high that 49% of Singaporeans reported that they could not go a day without their mobile phones, according to Limelight Networks’ recent The State of Digital Lifestyles 2019 research report.

As the competition for top jobs intensifies, executives in Singapore need to focus on improving their digital and language skills.

In 2017, famous physicist Stephen Hawking said that AI could be the last big event in human history unless we learn how to avoid the risks. Like him, I too am concerned about the risks of AI going awry and the dangers of it.

Food tech has become an exciting place to in the last few years as an increasing number of players look to tap into a near-insatiable appetite for food delivery services. The numbers are staggering, to say the least.

Singapore has seen a 47% increase in the number of data investigations since 2017 handing out over one and a half million dollars in fines, affecting companies from almost every industry

Nurses are the backbone of Singapore’s healthcare system and they play an important role in transforming the healthcare industry. President Halimah Yacob highlighted the significance of nurses during the International Council of Nurses’ biennial congress that was held earlier in June. It is essential that we introduce measures to support the unsung heroes of our healthcare system through the adoption of technology. This will help grow and develop the nursing workforce to address challenges in the healthcare system.

The Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC), set up in 2013 to implement Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), focused on establishing standards and rules to govern the control and management of personal data.

Singaporean companies should focus on the strategic aspects of HR and leave the day-to-day functions to professional managed services providers, who can drive efficiency, reduce costs and improve security.

Most probably, you have heard the terms "smart city" or "future city", which generally refers to urban centres that rely on technology to improve the lives of citizens. Many of us already live in smart cities without even realising it. Singapore itself is a prime example, with its Smart Nation transformation well underway since 2014, Singapore is leveraging sensors, the Internet of Things and data analytics to tackle a diverse range of problems, from traffic congestion to healthcare.

The past few years have seen many organisations embark on their digital transformation journey, with organisations looking to move their systems onto third platform technologies, such as mobile computing, social media, big data & analytics and the cloud. According to a 2018 Frost & Sullivan report, close to 40% of organisations across Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore have begun their IoT journey. The same study showed that 43% of Singapore enterprises surveyed have carried out IoT proofs of concept or having existing IoT implementations in place.

A Bain & Company report has outlined global exponential growth in the IoT markets from US$235b in 2017 to more than double at US$520b by 2021. Asia-Pacific has been cited to be the fastest growing region accounting up to 36.9% of worldwide spend. Singapore and South Korea are leading the pack, with smart buildings, security, and surveillance and traffic management as some of the fastest growing segments.

ASEAN is quickly gaining a reputation as an important trade hub, thanks to many factors at play. The region currently enjoys one of the fastest growing consumer markets in the world, strong foreign investments, and a windfall of benefits that stems from the ongoing US-China trade war. Strategically situated at the heart of this trade zone and armed with the right resources, Singapore is set to spearhead bold transformations that would reverberate through the region’s logistics industry.

Cybersecurity, fraud and “fake news” often dominate the headlines in today’s world. Risk has increasingly become a part of everyday vernacular, putting us as a society and as a business community on high alert. A recent report by PWC revealed that 32% of Singapore-based organisations fell victim to fraud in 2018 causing them to lose at least US$1m as a result.

I recently spoke on the topic of artificial intelligence’s (AI) role in the future of banking and financial services at a conference in Singapore that attracted stakeholders from many of the major banks. Like the Singapore government, I believe passionately in an AI-driven future economy and think it’s the right technology for banks here to adopt in their pursuit of navigating risk and compliance.