It is an open secret that technology can help companies weather an economic downturn by playing a major role in enabling businesses to increase resiliency. As such, tech industry leaders are hoping the Singapore Budget 2023 will include measures that will further encourage businesses in the country to digitally transform. Here’s what they hope to hear during the announcement next Tuesday.
Remus Lim, vice president for Apac, Cloudera
In challenging times, organisations need not be forced into a dilemma between resiliency and the pursuit of innovation. Resilience entails being antifragile – the ability to resist shocks to improve, evolve, become stronger, and recover quickly. While our natural inclination is to scrutinise finances and tighten corporate spending, reducing innovation budgets instead of eliminating them will allow organisations to continue to take advantage of new opportunities.
With the right tools in place, distilling actionable insights from data is easily achievable for organisations of all sizes across industries, especially with the availability of self-serve functionalities that do not require specialised operations or cloud expertise. Pairing a strong data strategy with an agile data practice, as well as the ability to respond quickly and innovate effectively, are fundamentals to an antifragile organisation. As the government pledges continued investments in our local tech talent, we look forward to the support for businesses on their digital transformation journeys by availing access to resources and opportunities to upskill and reskill.
James Ang, senior vice president, APAC at Dataiku
Under the current economic circumstances, it is vital for the government to continue providing financial assistance and tax incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to accelerate their digital transformation, prioritise investment in sustainable and responsible business practices, and insulate their operations from macroeconomic volatility.
See also: Tech leaders' wishlist for Singapore Budget 2023 (Part 1)
For long-term growth as businesses move online, policies supporting e-commerce and digital trade will allow them to expand their reach globally and contribute to Singapore's economic growth and prosperity. Equally important is to continue to encourage foreign investment to help promote innovation and job creation. This will be key to steering Singapore’s key sectors into the next phase of growth.
Finally, our people are our greatest assets. Investing in infrastructure and education will enable us to build a future-ready skilled workforce, particularly around ICT and areas such as artificial intelligence.
Karen Ng, regional lead for Asean, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Greater China, Deel
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The tech sector in Singapore has faced job sheds amidst macro uncertainties of inflation, interest rates and capital costs. The cyclical trend will see the tech industry adapt and rise again, now is an opportunity for the public and private sectors to get ahead of the curve to deploy long and short-term solutions to tackle employment issues.
We are seeing stronger than ever employee demands for flexible arrangements and work-life balance from employers. A concerted effort to transform workplace offerings and human resource readiness to get in line with today’s global practices (in terms of incompliance, onboarding programmes, payroll options, and employee benefits) will be the key to attracting and retaining talent who have spades of experience driving growth in global, regional tech champions or early-stage start-ups.
CK Tan, senior director for Solutions and Value Engineering, Qlik
In an uncertain climate, there is pressure for business leaders to steer their organisations through the turmoil, with the first step being to oversee the bottom line and ensure long-term viability. But having a view across different departments and systems means dealing with more volume and variety of data, which increases the risk of being deluged by data.
To help businesses improve the accuracy of their forecasts and make the best costs and pricing decisions, they need to gain clarity on every aspect through one complete data source. A modern approach to real-time data provides live views and insights into the business’s financial performance, pinpointing areas for improvement and where they can pivot to drive success.
As this requires a holistic strategy, I hope to see measures supporting technology investments, such as establishing a single source of truth to perform analytics and funding for training programmes to upskill workers in data literacy, enabling them to make the right business decisions.
Sarita Singh, revenue growth lead, Southeast Asia, Stripe
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With the economic slowdown, most businesses would default to cost-cutting measures for survival. However, ambitious businesses should use the time to innovate and find opportunities to create stronger cost efficiencies and maximise revenue.
One area of opportunity is the digitisation of financial processes, which the government can encourage Singapore businesses to take on with their support for productivity-focused initiatives such as Skillsfuture Enterprise credits and Productivity Solutions Grant.
Notably, 70% of all invoicing globally still takes place with paper invoices. Many local businesses are still relying on legacy payment infrastructure (such as cash and cheques), resulting in operational inefficiencies. Adopting financial solutions will help businesses simplify payments, remain compliant with local regulations, and reduce costs in the long term.
Another area of opportunity is for Singapore businesses to go global. A further extension of the Market Readiness Assistance (MRA) grant from the Singapore government will be helpful in this respect.
We are keen to see more SMEs digitalise further by tapping into global financial infrastructure and scaling globally, which will ultimately increase productivity and grow the digital economy for Singapore.
Christanto Suryadarma, Southeast Asia sales vice president, Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific
2023 is set to be a challenging year for Singapore, in view of rising inflation, ongoing supply chain risks, labour crunch and global uncertainty. It is crucial that Singapore enterprises continue to digitalise to ensure continued economic growth for the country. To do so, the Singapore government must introduce initiatives that support the digitalisation of local enterprises to help them satisfy evolving consumer demands amidst the challenges ahead.
Local enterprises need to adopt purpose-built technological solutions -- like Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), artificial intelligence/ machine learning and human-centred automation -- to gain improved work and cost efficiency, accuracy and visibility over their businesses to enable them to make business-critical decisions swiftly and decisively. Digitalisation will help enterprises future-proof themselves, weather the upcoming economic storm and contribute to building a more resilient and sustainable Singapore in the days ahead.
