During the Future Economy Conference and Exhibition (FECE) of 2020 organised by the Singapore Business Federation, Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing stressed on the importance of digitalisation to push the economy forward.
“Singapore must act now to transform its economy, or risk losing its hub status and see its businesses and worker’s competitive edge erode,” he said.
He further added that companies must prioritise making use of digital methods to go beyond the boundaries put forth by geography.
“Now is the time to re-engineer processes, build a new economy, and transform to create the right opportunities for businesses and people,” he added.
“The faster we adapt, the faster we recover. There is no place for treading water and waiting for normalcy to return. Others will overtake us, and the opportunities will pass us by.”
The virtual conference, which saw a total of 1,000 business leaders attending, had 19 speakers from large companies, including United Overseas Bank, PayPal and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who shared their experiences going digital.
The main focus of the conference was how companies can rebuild their processes using digital tools. According to executive chairman Chris Wei of Aviva Asia “data was the number one key to the company’s digital strategy” in the new normal.
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Throughout his speech, he also spoke about challenges that he faced while making the transition and said that “culture clash” was one major hurdle.
“It does require leadership, it requires a lot of time, a lot of mediation, to make sure that priorities are aligned,” Wei, said.
In Singapore, throughout the outbreak of the pandemic, many companies have stepped up their efforts to offer help and support SME and MSMEs’.
Companies like Grab announced a pilot programme for hawkers, which delivers food from hawker stalls to customers while other companies like SGTech set up a fund to support Singapore’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Other than that, the government is also reaching its hand out to support small businesses through schemes such as the SMEs Go Digital programme and financial incentives such as the Digital Resilience Bonus for firms that use digital solutions.
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