Meet ISS' new Director & CEO, Chan Meng (in the photo) and read his views of leadership challenges today and whatthe ISS of the future is.

What are the new challenges that [IT] leadersare facing today?

In Singapore, the entire nation is becoming Smart. The challenge for all leaders, not simply IT leaders, whether they are in government, transport, healthcare, or business, is in understanding what it means to be ‘smart’ and what it will take to get there as a nation. Globally, every business is becoming a digital business. This brings with it an evolution of new business models, new business processes, and also entirely new markets and jobs. New professions that have never previously existed are emerging, and at the same time certain traditional roles are becoming outdated or obsolete. This global evolution of digital businesses is another increasing challenge that all leaders must face, and have to be prepared to address. At both local and global levels, one of the underpinning grand challenges is an impending talent crunch. Locally, we need to determine how we will resource all the people we need to implement our Smart Nation. Globally, we need to consider whether or not we have the leadership talent to steer us in the right direction through the new economy. Where will we find the talent to operate new business models in new markets? I see this as one of the biggest challenges we are facing today.

How is ISS addressing these emerging opportunities?

ISS has always been in the business of practice-based education. This means ensuring that our programmes are continually relevant to contemporary practices in industry and ensuring that the skills our participants gain through our programmes remain relevant for their future needs. In terms of how we achieve this, we ensure that all of our programmes are based on real industry practices. We maintain very strong industry engagement through our applied research and consulting activities. This approach ensures that we continuously update our teaching content, allowing us to impart the latest best practices. Going forward, ISS has three key focus areas that will enable us to remain highly relevant and impactful. Firstly, we are deepening our involvement with the key economic sectors, including health, transport, and government. We believe that by being involved in the business transformation that’s happening within each of these key sectors, we will gain a deeper understanding of what it takes for organisations to address the challenges of Smart Nation and new business models. With deeper insights, our programmes can be tailored for optimal contextual impact. Leadership development is another key focus for ISS. Unless we can develop the leaders who can take the rest of us through these future challenges, and who are able to nurture and retain good talent, we will continue to be caught in the vicious cycle of the talent crunch. So one of our strategies is to focus more explicitly on leadership development, not just of leaders within the IT industry but also the future leaders of digital businesses. Our third key strategy addresses capability development for what constitutes both the bedrock of the economy as well as the emerging industries of the future, namely SMEs and start-ups. With the 90% of Singapore’s workforce employed within SMEs or start-ups, it is impossible to ignore the importance of this sector. Supporting the skill and capability development amongst these businesses, particularly in terms of productivity and innovation, we have the potential to transform the sector, and create a substantial impact on the overall economy as a result. Start-ups are the emerging industries of the future. They are the ones creating the new professions and businesses. We are at the beginning of a journey with them that will help to shape and develop talent for the future digital businesses.

What will the ISS of the future offer?

We are rethinking the way we package and deliver our programmes. We understand, for example, the particular challenges SMEs and start-ups face in growing and developing talent, and we will be applying agile, innovative approaches that will allow them to take full advantage of the programmes we offer. This represents a significant shift for ISS in the way we operate, offering an even more pragmatic, blended learning approach for SMEs and start-ups which differs markedly from the way we have worked with the more traditional, larger companies we have primarily served in the past. We recognise that different types of organisations need different types of support. We are investing in new ways of delivery, such as modular and blended learning, to make our programmes more accessible and effective than ever before. Our leadership development programme, for example, is not just about classroom teaching. It’s about leaders and future leaders coming together in the right environment to foster knowledge exchange among peers, to collaboratively develop insights, and to learn from real life case studies so that they can create tangible and lasting impact in their own organisations. As we work within specific sectors, we will see powerful impacts arising as our teaching, research and consultancy are melded into one. We expect to be working very closely with organisations on site, with training and guidance delivered at the right time to create the most beneficial and lasting effects. Let us consider, for example, the healthcare sector. As a hospital is serving its patients, we might on the one hand, look at the ways to impart best practices for operational process management and, on the other hand, provide advice on the transformational opportunities, as well as work with the hospital on research projects to analyse how this all comes together. This is important because as we go deep into a sector, we want to ensure that the skills which are learned are actually translated into organisational impact. We want to be able to help organisations to follow through towards the outcomes that they want to achieve, beyond just skills development.

How will you lead ISS to continue to innovate and stay relevant to the industry?

ISS has built an excellent reputation in our local IT industry. We have been very consistently supporting our national IT capability development agenda for the past 30 years, with over 90,000 alumni having benefitted from our programmes. Moving forward, we must be able to apply all of this knowledge to make an even bigger impact in industry. ISS professionals need to continue to actively engage industry, they have to continue to embrace innovation and, most importantly, I want us to take the challenge upon ourselves of ensuring that we continue to impart the very best thought leadership to our stakeholders in industry. By that, I mean we must help industry leaders and professionals to acquire the best knowledge and experience in the most effective ways possible so that they can then lead and drive business transformation and organisational innovation within their industries. Personally, I want to ensure that ISS has a very clear strategy moving forward, and to ensure that all of us in ISS are fully aligned, and excited, and geared to go in implementing this strategy. It is also important to me that our stakeholders are fully engaged. Between ISS and our stakeholders, I would like to see us strengthen existing partnerships, and develop new ones. We cannot achieve our strategies alone. Going forward we need to work together. There is a rich ecosystem for ISS to belong to, and to thrive, moving forward, and this should bring benefits for all involved. I also want to invest in our talent at ISS, and focus on our professional development. I want ISS professionals to be the best exemplars, inspiring our participants from industry to be the great future leaders of tomorrow.

What is your vision for ISS?

I would like ISS to play a central role in Singapore’s roadmap to becoming a Smart Nation. My vision, through that, is for ISS to become an institution with global influence, recognised as a world class thought leader in organisational innovation and business transformation.