Commentary

To mark the end of Singapore’s ASEAN chairmanship in November 2018, Prime Minister Lee handed Thailand’s Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, a wooden gavel and the Thai premier thanked Singapore for "efficiently driving forward a resilient and innovative ASEAN community". So what can the community learn from Singapore after a decade?

The retail sales (excluding auto) in Singapore has been declining since 2014 on an average of 0.2% per year, but the yearly decline is much faster in departmental stores and apparels at 0.7% and 0.4% respectively. This decline in retail spending is despite the household incomes going up by 12% during the same period. Clearly, the malls and stores need to have a paradigm shift in shopping experience to be able to reverse the declining trend and give a solid reason for shoppers to spend more in stores.

The current approach to addressing cyber threats, implemented by corporations in Singapore, is not being communicated effectively enough to its employees. A study commissioned by global travel management company CWT, found that only 27% of business travelers from Singapore said they feel very confident about not compromising their employer’s data safety when traveling. This is a significant difference when compared with an average of 35% of business travelers globally.

The underlying narrative of the 21st century has been underscored by technological advancements, whether it be in smartphones and tablets, the advent of social media, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, to name a few.

Disruptive and emerging technologies are changing the way we work and live today. This new wave of technologies is undoubtedly infiltrating the education sector, not only in Singapore, but all over the world. As a result, our education sector is transforming– with enhanced teaching methods, as well as new ways of learning in our increasingly digital world.

Globalisation, digitalisation and automation are fundamentally changing the way businesses interact with their customers and the way people work. The good news for Singapore is that it is one of Asia’s, if not the world’s, most digitally advanced nations when it comes to digital adoption and transformation.

One of the most important departments, if not the most important, of every firm is the sales team. That said, sales personnel are often seen in a negative light. A survey from Happi.sg revealed that 64% of respondents believed that sales people are under “constant pressure to meet quarterly sales targets, leading to pushy behaviour and sometimes unethical decisions”.

In the moments after a security breach is detected, moving quickly is incredibly important for Singapore businesses, especially now that the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) plans to revise the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) to require companies to notify it of breaches within 72 hours.

Rapid technology innovation in Singapore has made digital disruption the new normal as once safe, stable, and secure industries begin to fully acknowledge the scale, speed, breadth and depth of digital transformation.

You have a strong product, a great team, and a 5-year business plan at hand – so what’s missing? The answer is simple: it’s not about what you sell, but how you sell.

Worldwide spending on digital transformation will amount to nearly US$2t in 2022 as organisations spend on technologies and services to effectively compete in the new economy. In Singapore, digital transformation (DX) is expected to contribute US$10b to the nation’s GDP by 2021, with a 40% increase in benefits such as productivity, revenue and cost reduction.

Globalisation of the economy has resulted in a shift in the way Singapore corporations operate – from local country-specific business models, to global integrated supply chains which centralise functions at a regional or global level.

The results of a global survey published by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) confirm that Asia remains the leading growth region for mobile payments. In line with other countries in the region, Singapore continues to see an increase in mobile payment usage, with the proportion of consumers making such payments growing from 34% in 2018 to 46% in 2019.

In recent years, we have seen an influx of Asian money into countries like Singapore and Hong Kong. According to the recent World’s Billionaire’s list published by Forbes, Asia is home to 719 billionaires, approximately 32.65% of the world’s billionaires. The ultra-rich are starting to take a more hands on approach in the investment of their wealth and Family Offices are on the rise. At the end of 2018, Asia has nearly 500 Family Offices in Asia and this number is set to rise in 2019. Family Offices not only provide investment strategies, they also assist with diversification of the family’s business portfolio, dispute resolution, and succession planning.

We are living in Industrial Revolution 4.0 where data have emerged as the new ‘growth fuel’, powering everything from productivity and profits to politics and dominance.

In Singapore, barriers to financing have resulted in an unmet funding gap for SMEs worth as much as $20b.