Commentary

Mass data breaches have been impacting our region, reiterating the fact that no business or nation is truly immune from cyber threats. This has been a driving force for the development of cybersecurity capabilities from within by regional governments, including Singapore’s, and businesses, by fostering the development of startups in the cybersecurity space.

It may seem like money laundering is on the rise if recent news headlines are anything to go by. But the fact is, criminals have been successfully laundering money through financial institutions for hundreds of years. The difference now is that financial regulators around the world – including the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) – are cracking down on banks to ensure that adequate processes are put in place to prevent criminals laundering money and financing terrorist activity. The landscape for financial institutions is well and truly changing, and the regulations are only going to get tighter.

Although Singapore was ranked as the safest country in the world based on a report by the World Justice Project in 2018, cybersecurity breaches are increasingly threatening the safety of our digital world.

There are increasing calls all around the world for the government to regulate social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter and tech giants like Amazon. A web of reasons explains these sentiments, which were kindled by the Cambridge Analytica scandal which damaged Facebook’s reputation internationally. Coupled with recent scares on fake news and misinformation, the case for government regulation seems compelling. In fact, the Singapore government, in early May, has already passed legislation that would compel sites like Facebook to issue corrections or make changes to posts that are deemed to be against "public interest".

It was now over ten years ago when the cargo ships stopped moving. The Global Financial Crisis reached Asia causing the Singapore Strait, one of the biggest arteries of global trade, to come to a standstill. In fact, Singapore was the first Southeast Asian country to fall into a recession as a result of the calamity. At the time, it seemed the only businesses doing well were the bars and restaurants filled with brokers and traders who had nothing to sell.

The way people want to work is constantly evolving. Driven by needs that are sometimes not provided by a permanent placement, for example, flexible working arrangements or gaining experience without a need to commit to a company, more people today seek greater control over the way they work.

As growing uncertainty mounts in the global economy due to the US-China trade conflicts, the need to transform Singapore into a globally competitive, self-sustaining and technology-driven nation grows increasingly urgent. Singapore, heavily reliant on exports, could lose $22b in GDP according to analysts, due to the trade war.

To mark the end of Singapore’s ASEAN chairmanship in November 2018, Prime Minister Lee handed Thailand’s Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, a wooden gavel and the Thai premier thanked Singapore for "efficiently driving forward a resilient and innovative ASEAN community". So what can the community learn from Singapore after a decade?

The retail sales (excluding auto) in Singapore has been declining since 2014 on an average of 0.2% per year, but the yearly decline is much faster in departmental stores and apparels at 0.7% and 0.4% respectively. This decline in retail spending is despite the household incomes going up by 12% during the same period. Clearly, the malls and stores need to have a paradigm shift in shopping experience to be able to reverse the declining trend and give a solid reason for shoppers to spend more in stores.

The current approach to addressing cyber threats, implemented by corporations in Singapore, is not being communicated effectively enough to its employees. A study commissioned by global travel management company CWT, found that only 27% of business travelers from Singapore said they feel very confident about not compromising their employer’s data safety when traveling. This is a significant difference when compared with an average of 35% of business travelers globally.

The underlying narrative of the 21st century has been underscored by technological advancements, whether it be in smartphones and tablets, the advent of social media, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, to name a few.

Disruptive and emerging technologies are changing the way we work and live today. This new wave of technologies is undoubtedly infiltrating the education sector, not only in Singapore, but all over the world. As a result, our education sector is transforming– with enhanced teaching methods, as well as new ways of learning in our increasingly digital world.

Globalisation, digitalisation and automation are fundamentally changing the way businesses interact with their customers and the way people work. The good news for Singapore is that it is one of Asia’s, if not the world’s, most digitally advanced nations when it comes to digital adoption and transformation.

One of the most important departments, if not the most important, of every firm is the sales team. That said, sales personnel are often seen in a negative light. A survey from Happi.sg revealed that 64% of respondents believed that sales people are under “constant pressure to meet quarterly sales targets, leading to pushy behaviour and sometimes unethical decisions”.

In the moments after a security breach is detected, moving quickly is incredibly important for Singapore businesses, especially now that the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) plans to revise the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) to require companies to notify it of breaches within 72 hours.

Rapid technology innovation in Singapore has made digital disruption the new normal as once safe, stable, and secure industries begin to fully acknowledge the scale, speed, breadth and depth of digital transformation.