By Tan Chi Siong, Chief, MTech Digital Leadership Programme / Deputy Chief, Digital Strategy & Leadership Practice, NUS-ISS
It began with the unicorns. The likes of now dominant industry players such as Facebook, Uber and Airbnb, who have come to be synonymous with the heart of the digital age.
The initial years of digital transformation saw entrepreneurs, and even legacy companies, scrambling to build the “Next Big Thing” – a start-up or sandbox project to disrupt decades-old industries, for fear of being disrupted. However, as the digital ecosystem matures, industry structures will constantly be redefined. Technology no longer only affects how individual businesses perform, but also how economies function and prepare for the future. Organisations have realised that it is no longer a question about what or why to achieve digital innovation and transformation, but how and what is needed to take them there.
Around the world, governments have embarked aggressively on their digital economy agendas to derive the benefits of a hyper-connected world. Singapore launched its Digital Economy Framework for Action in May 2018, setting out a guide to help its businesses and workforce adapt and embrace digitalisation. The sunny island state was ranked second in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2019, behind the United States of America1.
The heart of Singapore’s economy
Increasingly, across industry sectors, business growth is driven by a company’s ability to adopt technology- enabled business models. The future is digital and every business will have to digitise themselves in order to thrive and remain relevant in the future economy.
With 99 per cent of enterprises in Singapore
falling within the definition of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), there is no doubt that these firms play a pivotal and differentiating role in realising the country’s vision for a future digital economy. A key pillar of Singapore’s economy, SMEs contribute 48 per cent of the country’s GDP, while employing 65 per cent of the workforce2. This makes them important drivers of Singapore’s economic development. To ride the digital wave, every SME will need to be digitally enabled and every worker digitally skilled.
However, for most SMEs, balancing productivity and innovation remains one of their biggest challenges. New technologies are emerging faster than companies’ ability to explore and exploit. Trends are shifting faster than businesses can adapt. To fully reap the benefits of the new economy, organisations will require digital leaders who are able to strategically navigate the complex and multi-faceted digital economy landscape.
The people of the digital economy
Effective digital leadership, which calls for a unique blend of business, technology and people skills, is existential for SMEs.
Most SMEs operate with a lean team; offering niche services and products to a targeted audience. As such, human capital is a critical asset and digital leaders need to ensure that their employees will
be ready to tackle the challenges that digital transformation will bring. By providing development opportunities for employees to learn and grow working environments that contribute towards a company's growth can be fostered.
To support their talent development goals, SMEs can partner with an established Institute of Higher Learning (IHL) to achieve their training and development goals.
In recent years, IHLs have introduced unique portfolios of multiple learning pathways comprising various courses in core digital disciplines. These programmes, which focus on practice-based learning, are taught by experienced industry professionals who are able to deliver rich insights and critical skills catered to specific industries. The programmes come in modular courses that are stackable to a professional certification. It allows for full-time professionals to work towards a degree in the long term, without having to take an extended period of time off from work.
With an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of new value created in the economy based on digitally-enabled platforms, our digital economy is growing and will continue to grow. Singapore’s Minister
for Communications and Information, S Iswaran, emphasised at the World Economic Forum 2020,
"The digital economy is a global economy.”3 It is not an isolated and closed ecosystem, but a global digital space without borders.
As local enterprises take advantage of new digital models to scale their businesses and develop human assets, their active involvement in shaping the digital economy will continue to ensure that new opportunities are created for their businesses and people.
Resources:
1 https://www.imd.org/wcc/world-competitivenesscenter-rankings/world-digital-competitivenessrankings-2019/
2 https://www.synergixtech.com/news-event/businessblog/business-challenges-smes-2019/
3 https://www.straitstimes.com/world/digital-economydeals-will-create-opportunities-for-spore-iswaran
This article was first published in ASME "Entrepreneurs' Digest issue 90"
Writer, Tan Chi Siong is the Chief, MTech Digital Leadership Programme / Deputy Chief, Digital Strategy & Leadership Practice, Institute of Systems Science, National University of Singapore.
Chi Siong is a digital strategist and business transformation leader with experience in financial services and technology. Most recently, he held leadership roles with GIC and was responsible for developing the master plans to transform GIC into a technology-driven investment company.
Chi Siong teaches courses on innovation leadership, digital organisation models and strategic thinking & digital foresight. His current research focuses on uplifting leadership and organisational capabilities for digital transformation.