Today, harnessing digital smart technologies is key to the fabric of Singapore’s economy. With the government proclaiming the "Smart Nation" initiative as the way forward, it is little wonder that businesses are striving to leverage digital technologies to compete.
In fact, KPMG reveals that in spite of the unprecedented disruption of recent years, CEOs in Singapore still have faith in the transformative powers of digital investments.
The outlook found that three in five had an aggressive digital investment strategy in place to secure first-mover or fast-follower status. While nearly half of the respondents cited rapid modernisation as critical to securing talent and customers.
However, digital transformation often becomes a mere buzzword. For many organisations, this results in rudderless initiatives that come at the cost of successful modernisation. But this needn't be the case and can be overcome via the following principles.
Law of digitalisation - All transactions must be captured digitally and without manual intervention or data entry. This is essential for transformation where live data is required for decision-making. With sensors able to capture faces, voices, vehicle numbers, production numbers and weights, it should not be difficult to capture this. Without this, digital transformation is almost sure to fail, as a batch mode of updates or data is only captured well past the event.
Law of intelligent systems - Armed with live data within the enterprise and outside events, the system should be able to predict the next event and suggest the best course of action. Given their real-time nature, the alerts and notification engine should reach decision-makers on their preferred device instantly.
Law of digital transformation - Taking the bull by the horns is critical to digital transformation. And too often, companies do not apply this when it comes to their core business or operations. If you are a manufacturing firm, you must try and transform your manufacturing, if you are a bank, you must transform your banking, not your HR or payroll. Many don’t for fear of upsetting the core business, but the results would not be spectacular also if you transform your non-core business.
Law of digital assets - All Digital assets improve with more usage, whereas all physical assets depreciate with usage. For example, if you use the same data and model for sales, order tracking, supply chain monitoring, and factory scheduling, the benefits improve exponentially due to a consistent set of data, assumptions, real-time predictions, and reactions to changes. Hence use a set of data, algorithms, and models in as many use cases as possible.
Law of digital capacity - The more systems, the harder it is to follow the laws previously listed. I have seen even up to 80 systems in a company, severely impacting any holistic view of the organisation. To be practical, it is not possible to have a single system for all processes of the organisation, though many vendors claim this. So the next best thing is for all of these systems and people to behave in real-time as one. In this regard, a good workflow and real-time integrations are a must.
Law of customer intimacy - The further your application is from the end customer, the lower the chances of transformation success. I have seen companies having no contact with the customer either during the sale or after the sale. Unless your systems are interacting with your customers before, during and after the sale, no amount of transformation internally would bring in benefits many times over. Given the proliferation of social media and AI, I think with a little bit of focus and intent, this can be achieved.
Law of cultural empowerment - The Digital Transformation field is firstly an unknown field for most. Even if we know the technologies and successful use cases, what is relevant is difficult to arrive at. You may stumble upon it, and the thing to remember is that it is dynamic and may not work in the future. Success is likely to come only after considerable trials and tribulations, so organisations should reward continuous innovation, and encourage teams to learn from failures.
CEO as the change maker - All the above is possible only if the CEO is the driver of this. Organisational culture, setting direction and supporting innovation can be done only with the blessing of a CEO that himself embodies the value of constant evolution and growth.
With the government’s whole-of-society approach to modernisation, Singapore’s commitment to innovation requires businesses to buttress public sector initiatives with smart, strategic IT investments. Throwing money at the issue isn't going to achieve anything. And while speed is one thing, it isn't a question of time either. In fact, it is about agility and equipping the business to navigate risk effectively. Ultimately, to continue reaping the benefits of the country's reputation as a tech hub, businesses in Singapore need to de-risk their modernisation initiatives. This, then, will be what positions them for resilience.
