The Ecosystm Voice of the Employee Study reveals that 76% of your employees have a dedicated home office, which they have continually enhanced over the last two years. Now that you are working to bring these employees back to the office, are you focusing on giving them the same technology and environment that they have become used to?
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Organisations are finding that the ways to do work and conduct business are evolving rapidly. It is evident that we cannot use the perspectives from the past as a guide to the future. As a consequence both leaders and employees are discovering and adapting both their work and their expectations from it. In general, while job security concerns still command a big mindshare, the simpler productivity measures are evolving to more nuanced wellness measures. This puts demands on the CHRO and the leadership team to think about company, customer and people strategy as one holistic way of working and doing business.
Organisations will have to re-think their people and technology to evolve their Future of Work policies and strategise their Future of Talent. There are multiple dimensions that will require attention.
Hybrid is Becoming Mainstream
It is clear that hybrid workplaces are here to stay. Ecosystm research finds that in 2021 BFSI organisations will use more collaboration tools and platforms, and virtual meetings (Figure 1). Nearly 40% expect more employees to work from home, but only about a quarter of organisations are looking to reduce their physical workspaces. Organisations will give more choice to employees in the location of their work – and employees will choose to work from where they are more productive. The Hybrid model will be more mainstream than it has been in the last few months.
Companies are coming to terms with the fact that there is no single answer to operating in the new world. Experimentation and learnings are continuously captured to create the right workforce and workplace model that works best. Agility both in terms of being able to undersand the market as well as quickly adapt is becoming quite important. Thus being able to use different models and ways of working at the same time is the new norm.
Technology and Talent are Core
Talent and tech are the two core pillars that companies need to look at to be successful against their competition. It is becoming imperative to create synergy between the two to deliver a superior value proposition to customers. Companies that are able to bring the customer and employee experience journeys together will be able to create better value. HR tech stacks need to evolve to be more deliberate in the way they link the employee experience, customer experience, and the culture of the organisation. That’s how the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) comes to life on a day-to-day basis to the employers. With evolving work models, the tech stack is a key EVP pillar.
Governments will also need to partner with industry to make such talent available. Singapore is rolling out a new “Tech.Pass” to support the entry of up to 500 proven founders, leaders and experts from top tech companies into Singapore. Its an extension of the Tech@SG program launched in 2019, to provide fast-growing companies greater assurance and access to the talent they need. The EDB will administer the pass, supported by the Ministry of Manpower.
Attracting the Right Talent
Talent has always been difficult to find. Even with globalisation, significant investment of time and resources is needed to find and relocate talent to the right geography. In many instances this was not possible given the preferences of the candidates and/or the hiring managers. COVID-19 has changed this drastically. Remote working and distributed teams have become acceptable. With limitations on immigration and travel for work, there is a lot more openness to finding and hiring talent from outside the traditional talent pool.
However it is not as simple as it seems. The cost per applicant (CPA) – the cost to convert a job seeker to a job applicant – had been averaging US$11-12 throughout 2019 according to recruiting benchmark data from programmatic recruitment advertising provider, Appcast. But, the impact of COVID-19 saw the CPA reach US$19 in June – a 60% increase. I expect that finding right talent is going to be a “needle in a haystack” issue. But this is only one side of the coin – the other aspect is that the talent profile needed to be successful in roles that are all remote or hybrid is also significantly different from what it was before. Companies need to pay special attention to what kind of people they would like to hire in these new roles. Without this due consideration it is very likely that there would be difficulty in on-boarding and making these new hires successful within the organisation.
Automation Augmentation and Skills
The pace at which companies are choosing to automate or apply AI is increasing. This is changing the work patterns and job requirements for many roles within the industry. According to the BCG China AI study on the financial sector 23% of the roles will be replaced by AI by 2027. The roles that will not be replaced will need a higher degree of soft skills, critical thinking and creativity. However, automation is not the endgame. Firms that go ahead with automation without considering the implications on the business process, and the skills and roles it impacts will end up disrupting the business and customer experience. Firms will have to really design their customer journeys, their business processes along with roles and capabilities needed. Job redesign and reskilling will be key to ensuring a great customer experience
Analytics is Inadequate Without the Right Culture
Data-driven decision-making as well as modelling is known to add value to business. We have great examples of analytics and data modelling being used successfully in Attrition, Recruitment, Talent Analytics, Engagement and Employee Experience. The next evolution is already underway with advanced analytics, sentiment analysis, organisation network analysis and natural language processing (NLP) being used to draw better insights and make people strategies predictive. Being able to use effective data models to predict and and draw insights will be a key success factor for leadership teams. Data and bots do not drive engagement and alignment to purpose – leaders do. Working to promote transparency of data insights and decisions, for faster response, to champion diversity, and give everyone a voice through inclusion will lead to better co-creation, faster innovation and an overall market agility.
Creating a Synergy
We are seeing a number of resets to what we used to know, believe and think about the ways of working. It is a good time to rethink what we believe about the customer, business talent and tech. Just like customer experience is not just about good sales skills or customer service – the employee experience and role of Talent is also evolving rapidly. As companies experiment with work models, technology and work environment, there will a need to constantly recalibrate business models, job roles, job technology and skills. With this will come the challenge of melding the pieces together within the context of the entire business without falling into the trap of siloed thinking. Only by bringing together businesses processes, talent, capability evolution, culture and digital platforms together as one coherent ecosystem can firms create a winning formula to create a competitive edge.
Singapore FinTech Festival 2020: Talent Summit
For more insights, attend the Singapore FinTech Festival 2020: Infrastructure Summit which will cover topics on Founders success and failure stories, pandemic impact on founders and talent development, upskilling and reskilling for the future of work.
Organisations across the world are experimenting with what work model would work best for them in 2021. The last week saw several announcements that make it clear that irrespective of the model that becomes prevalent, remote working and the hybrid/blended work model are here to stay.
Remote Working Remains a Reality in 2021
The reduced demand for office space has led companies to re-think their lease renewals and physical space requirements. Deloitte has announced that it will close 4 of its 50 offices in the UK. The four offices in Gatwick, Liverpool, Nottingham and Southampton employ around 500 people who would be allowed to move to other locations or offered permanent remote working options. Ecosystm research finds that about a quarter of global organisations expect to reduce commercial office space in 2021.
Most organisations have introduced remote working options till the end of 2020 and beyond; while some others have made working from home a permanent option. Organisations will have to re-evaluate when employees can be realistically expected to come back into the office, and many will extend their work from home policy. Amazon recently announced the extension of its work from home policy till June 2021, from January 2021. Other organisations are expected to follow suit as the virus continues to be active in many countries.
The Experimentation will Continue
Companies will continue to enable seamless collaboration that spans across virtual and physical realms. But what will be important is to see how organisations can successfully incorporate a remote working culture across its different locations. Dropbox has announced a new ‘Virtual First’ remote working policy which includes features such as the ability for employees to decline unnecessary meetings, and a way to open source their learnings with the wider business community. Dropbox will still retain some physical spaces called Dropbox Studios, that will either be repurposed office space or entirely new spaces designed for meetings, group events and special offsites. The core collaboration hours will typically be between 9am-1pm, as employees are no longer expected to be in the same locations or time zones.
Ecosystm Principal Advisor Ravi Bhogaraju says, “Flexibility (Work from home or Office Anywhere) is a company strategy and not a tactic. It needs to be evaluated within the context of the overall strategy of the company, how it creates value and how technology and talent can help provide better customer experience.”
Another experiment that was announced last week was Dubai’s efforts to revive its tourism industry. Remote working has been associated with stress and organisations are increasingly having to monitor employee emotional well-being. To overcome this, Dubai is inviting overseas remote workers to expand their workplace and remote working environment. Dubai’s new remote working program is welcoming remote workers with a valid passport, health insurance, proof of employment and a minimum monthly salary of USD 5,000 to visit and work from Dubai. Programs such as these highlights the potential change in the work environment that we might witness.
Talking about the implications of such moves on organisations, Bhogaraju says, “having everybody as free agents within the network working from anywhere – without fully enabling the process and workflows across teams and the entire organisation – will require a lot more patching or coordination. It can impact the customer experience, and also opens up the firms to compliance, tax and regulatory risks if not carefully managed – especially when cross-border work is involved.”
With experiments such as these, it will become even more important for organisations to ensure that they have the right technology in place that can not only ensure seamless access to company resources irrespective of the location of the employees but also that IT and cybersecurity teams are not overburdened by the need to secure the endpoints and network.
Other Factors to Consider
While organisations must keep working on understanding the right model that will work for them, there are some other factors that they should consider.
Ecosystm Principal Advisor, Mike Zamora says, “what employees are learning is that their home expenses are increasing – E.g. electricity, connectivity costs, and even food where employers have previously provided snacks, beverages and lunches. Increasingly this needs to be addressed by Businesses in order to maintain a strong connection with employees. If not, when the economy recovers, companies might find their talent moving to other companies.”
“As some companies have limited return to the office, the Business and Employees have learned what is essential to be completed at the office. This is usually collaborative tasks which cannot effectively be done through remote collaboration. In addition, there are some specialised assets (special work rooms for some industries) which cannot cheaply or effectively be recreated in the home environment.”
Bhogaraju also cautions, “an advantage of working from anywhere is that it opens up talent pools that were not available or accessible to employers before. However, without knowing what kind of employees would be needed to sustain the strategy on a mid to long-term basis the hiring would probably result in poor fit to the working environment – and lead to a spike in attrition as the employees would not be able to cope with the working arrangement.”
Download Ecosystm Predicts: The top 5 Future of Work Trends For 2021
The full findings and implications of The top 5 Future of Work Trends For 2021 are available for download from the Ecosystm platform. Signup for Free to download the report .
2020 has been a watershed year for Future of Work policies and technologies. Organisations are still evaluating their workplace strategies and 2021 is likely to see experiments in work models – every organisation will choose the model that works for their nature of work and their organisational culture. Against this backdrop of disruption and change, Ecosystm’s 360o Future of Work team – Audrey William, Mike Zamora, Ravi Bhogaraju and Tim Sheedy – present the top 5 Ecosystm predictions for the Future of Work in 2021.
This is a summary of the predictions, the full report (including the implications) is available to download for free on the Ecosystm platform here.
The Top 5 Future of Work Trends For 2021
- Human-centricity Will be Front and Centre of Organisational Priorities
2020 saw immense humanitarian disruption. Enabling remote work was a key component of business continuity. Both organisations and their employees have a better understanding now of the implications of remote working and how it can be made to work. They are also aware of the challenges of remote working. Monitoring productivity, maintaining the right work-life balance and ensuring employee emotional well-being have been challenging. Despite the challenges, hybrid/blended working is definitely here to stay. Employees will expect more options on the location of their work, often choosing to work where they are most productive.
All decisions related to the organisation, filtered through the lens of human-centricity, will drive better employee engagement – and engaged employees provide better customer experience. Organisations that will operationalise this at scale and across cultures will emerge as success stories.
- Technology Will Bond with Facilities and Operations – Connecting with HR Will be a Challenge
There has to be an alignment between the Business, People, Work Environment and Technology to make an organisation truly empowered to handle sudden pivots that will be required in 2021 as well (Figure 1).
This will require cross-departmental coordination and synergy. Tech teams have traditionally driven the Digital Workplace strategy; now they will have to work closely with Operations and Facilities Management teams on “Smart and Safe Office” strategies. That may not be the real challenge given that there are overlaps between these three teams – they have a shared language and similar KPIs. The real challenge will be the need for Tech teams and HR to work more closely to improve the overall employee experience, including a focus on employee productivity and wellness. Human-centricity makes the role of HR even more important – IT will find it challenging to find common grounds as there have traditionally been few shared KPIs between these two departments.
- Office Spaces Will Become Truly Digital
The hybrid/blended workplace model means that the physical workplace is not disappearing soon. Even as the model evolves for each organisation, what becomes clear is that employee expectations have changed drastically in the last year, and the traditional employee experience expectations of Salary, Recognition, and Job Satisfaction may not be enough. Employees will now expect flexibility, social cohesion, and effective communication. If they are to return to the physical office, they will expect the same benefits as working from home.
This will drive the adoption of digital tech to ensure the office space is safer, more effective and a productive environment for the employees and the business. Two key areas of focus will be on seamless access to information and employee control over work environment.
- Providers Will Deepen Digital Workplace Offerings, but the Market Will Not Consolidate
Key tech providers in the digital workspace space (such as Microsoft, Google, Zoom, Cisco, AWS and so on) will broaden their capabilities and make it easier to procure and use solutions. It will no longer be a “tool-centric” approach (chat, video, document sharing, online meetings, whiteboards and so on) – it will become a platform play. Information workers will be able to choose the approach that best fits the problem they are trying to resolve, without being limited by the capabilities of the tool. E.g. documents will be sharable and editable within chats; whiteboards will be integrated into all other communication services and so on.
Tech providers will deepen and strengthen their capabilities organically and acquisitions will mostly be about buying market share, customers and not the technology.
- Industry-centric Digital Workplace Services Will Emerge and Witness Rapid Growth
The Services industry has been leading in the adoption of digital workplaces – but blue-collar roles and front-line employees will also start benefiting from these technologies. In 2021, new digital workplace capabilities will extend beyond the employee base to systems that drive better connectivity and communication with customers. This will open the market up for smaller, niche players (and this may well run counter to the previous trend). Tech teams will focus on employees and a platform-based approach to collaboration, while Customer teams and others will implement tools and platforms to better communicate outside of the business. The next few years will bring the traditional “employee-centric” collaboration players into direct competition with the “customer-centric” ones. Those that play across both today (such as Google) will be better positioned to win the enterprise-wide “Future of Work” style deals.
The Future of Work is here, now. Organisations faced unprecedented challenges of coping with the work-from-home model, when COVID-19 hit earlier this year. Many organisations managed the pivot successfully – but all organisations were impacted in some way.
The COVID-19 crisis has required major resets in how organisations function – across industries and economies. In this environment of intense changes, businesses that have been agile in their operations and their mindsets and were better digitally enabled have thrived, while others have struggled.
Our 360o Future of Work practice focuses on Business, People, Technology and Work Environment. All four are required to work together to enable companies to meet future challenges. The Future of Work enables companies to Pivot, Adapt and Thrive.
The People practice within the Future of Work helps organisations adapt their People strategies in conjunction with the other areas to drive a holistic approach in the Future of Work strategies.
The Need for Human-centricity
Talent has always been a key company asset that brings product and service offerings to life. HR teams have retained a constant focus on attracting and retaining talent. HR teams have come into sharp focus as the pandemic rages across the world. With the closure of offices and borders, and distancing measures, companies have had to focus their energy on their people and the work infrastructure – almost overnight.
With every passing week, the situation keeps evolving – and so do the ways of managing and engaging with employees and customers. As countries and businesses slowly reopen and modify their distancing protocols the People strategies will have to evolve rapidly.
Every organisation is now grappling with the decision of whether to “reopen” and go back to how things were; or think of alternatives and opportunities that they can capitalise on to strengthen their businesses.
The 4Es of People: Experience Journeys
The cornerstone of the People practice within the Future of Work is to align the Customer Experience and the Employee Journey.
It is not just about finetuning the employee process or employee life cycle in isolation. That is a consequence of the tweaks to the overall journey.
Depending on the phase of the company that you are in (Pivot, Adapt and Thrive) the changes to the employee experience would vary. The 4Es of People is designed to help you make that happen.
Experiment. HR leaders are increasingly being asked to “orchestrate” companywide experiments to help figure out the way forward. An Experimentation Mindset is crucial to finding the right solutions fast. This needs to be done in a small and holistic way – some examples include thinking of different workforce models, working contracts and benefits, working archetypes, technology and data enablers and workplace models.
Enable. Two main areas of enablement that need to be looked at are: the human elements of talent, capability, leadership and culture to align to the business strategy pivots; and the associated elements of technology, workspace and analytics.
Energize. Key HR competencies of empathy and collaboration are increasingly becoming crucial to ensure that the organisation is staying well, motivated and focused through these demanding times.
Embed. The ability to learn from the experiments, finetune the overall system within and outside the company, and support the changes over the longer term are crucial to help companies scale the models and gain sustained competitive advantage over the mid-term.
The 4Es of People can be effective in adding the right elements and outcomes to support the changes. These are intended to enable HR to help organisation establish their Future of Work strategies and implement them effectively. This will help them to be prepared for whatever model of work becomes prevalent in the future.
Schedule a time to speak with us on Future of Work
Ecosystm Principal Advisors; Tim Sheedy (Technology), Ravi Bhogaraju (People & Organisations), and Mike Zamora (Work Environment) provide a holistic view of what the Future of Work will look like.
We enable businesses to adapt, pivot and thrive in their ecosystem; provide holistic access to data and insight across People, Technology and Work Environment; help businesses transform and be better prepared for future disruption, and the ever-changing competitive environment and customer, employee or partner demands.
Contact us through the platform, or over email at info@ecosystm360.com
The COVID-19 crisis has required major resets in how organisations function – across industries and economies. In this environment of intense changes, businesses that have been agile in their operations and were better digitally enabled have thrived, while others have struggled. Irrespective of whether an organisation has been able to pivot fast to thrive or struggled to cope, it is very clear that the Future of Work is here now. Every organisation has had to make some changes to their People and work practices. It is time to (re) focus on employee experience holistically so that organisations can be ready for whatever model of work becomes prevalent in the future. I have recently published a report offering guidance to business leaders and HR Teams on how to make holistic workplace shifts, with inputs from Ecosystm Principal Advisors, Tim Sheedy and Audrey William.
Employee Experience at the Core of Customer Strategies
It has become increasingly clear that customer experience (CX) is not just about good sales skills or customer service. It is about the overall experience of the customer from start to post-purchase. Customers are focused on not just what they are buying but also on how they are treated along their entire journey. Good CX has consistently shown to help increase price premium, impulse buying, and loyalty. Consequently, one bad experience can drive a customer away forever. Customers pay for your products or services, but it is your people who can really deliver the experience.
Audrey says, “As it becomes clear that we are headed for a hybrid/blended model of work, employee experience (EX) has to be a key focus area for organisations. Organisations will have to support remote work and simultaneously evolve their physical workplaces so that employees have the choice to come into work. But business leaders and HR will definitely have to come together to re-evaluate their policies around employees and improving EX – irrespective of where they choose to work from.”
The Role of Productivity in the Digital Workplace
Productivity has been at the core of an organisation’s desire to be a digital workplace. Tim says, “A digital workplace is one that has the capability to support any employee to access the process, information or system they need on their device of choice, in their moment and location of need. In the wake of the pandemic, the digital workplace went from being a ‘good idea’ to an ‘absolute necessity’ – and the seeds were sown to build true digital workplaces, years ahead of plan.”
This is the time to retain that focus on productivity. A lot of energy is being spent in defining and measuring productivity. The focus seems to have shifted to how to get the best out of the remote/hybrid workforce. It is time for business leaders and HR to go back to the drawing board to re-define what productivity means to their organisations.
Tim says, “The focus should be on enabling productivity rather than on monitoring activity. Productivity is an outcome, not a process. So, measure the outcome, improve the process. Productivity will be driven at an organisational level through removing friction from overall operational processes, to make things more streamlined and effective to create more value.”
The True Implication of Flexibility
There has been a rapid shift in practices around working from home and flexibility. But it is time now for organisations to create a framework (policy, performance expectation and management) to manage these practices. Many companies do not really understand the implications of flexible working to their business. In fact, they may be unaware of shifts in work patterns that have taken place in the last few months and the impact these shifts are having on the business.
Framework around flexible working should be backed by data and an understanding of the feasibility of such practices. If your employee has to work on her compulsory day off, then you do not have a truly flexible work practice. This will have a negative impact on employee experience and ultimately on your business.
The Evolution of Employee Engagement
Audrey says, “One of the areas that business leaders and HR will have to bear in mind is that despite flexible working hours, employees might be overworked – it is emerging as a common problem with working from home. It is common that many employees are working longer hours.”
Ecosystm research finds that some organisations have been evolving their HR practices, since the start of this crisis (Figure 1).
But more needs to be done. Organisations have to work really hard to replicate their employee engagement and social hours in the virtual world. It is critical that organisations design mechanisms of keeping employees connected – to each other, as well as to the organisation. “Virtual social groups” not only provide this connection, it can also be a rich source of input for HR and wellness teams to quickly adapt their programs to meet the changing needs of employees.
Shift in Managerial Styles
Performance management has been traditionally done through annual cycles, and by monitoring and tracking. In the Future of Work, organisations will have to increasingly give their employees the choice of working from home. Meetings, check-ins, 1:1 and team huddles for close monitoring will not work in this remote/hybrid model.
It is time to stop close monitoring and really focus on outcome-based management. And this will have to start with re-skilling people managers. Training should be provided on softer skills such as emotional intelligence, being able to sense across boundaries and digital spaces, and being able to be responsive to employees’ needs. The people manager must evolve into being a coach and a mentor – internal coaching and mentoring networks will have to be established. Line managers, business leaders and HR teams will need to collaborate more to ensure that these skills are developed and that the right support system is in place.
As the saying goes, the “Future Ain’t What it Used to Be”. This has certainly been true of 2020. There have been many aspects of business that have rocked the foundation of what “used to be”, i.e. technology, changing business models, and digital transformation – all amid the onslaught of the coronavirus. All of these have affected every industry and every business, quite literally around the world.
Some businesses and individuals are beginning to effectively address and deal with this continuously evolving landscape. Others are unsure how to proceed. And still others are freezing like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. While no one can predict the future with certainty, it is still possible to assess their rapidly changing environment and develop business scenarios to consider the various potential outcomes.
COVID-19 has impacted all businesses, industries, and individuals. It has impacted how both business and work is conducted. Even after the crisis has passed, new ways of doing both will be required. The businesses which are thriving right now understand these changing requirements and how they might impact their Future of Work. They have learned what is required for them to compete through a New Holistic approach in order to be agile and adapt to sudden changes and a very competitive global marketplace.
At Ecosystm, we have developed a new 360o Future of Work practice, based on the changing business environment and what companies need to adapt, pivot and thrive. The 360o Future of Work practice is comprised of four components:
- The Business (organisation)
- The People (employees)
- The Technology (tools)
- The Work Environment (where work is done)
The Business component is of course the driver. The People component is key – they are one of the most important assets to make the Business successful. They are the Talent. The Work Environment and Technology are critical enablers. As enablers they allow the People to be more collaborative, innovative, creative, and effective, to contribute to the Business’s success.
When all four components work in unison, the outcome is an effective Business designed to meet future challenges, competitors, and the unknown black swans – we call this organisation the “Empowered Business” (Figure 1). It is essential that each of these four components be understood and discussed and organisations seek advice in detail with respect to the specific business strategy in order for the Company to not only succeed, but thrive in the New Natural State of Equilibrium.
What to Expect
In subsequent articles, the 360o Future of Work practice leaders (Ravi Bhogaraju – People & Organisation; Tim Sheedy – Technology; and I – Work Environment) will discuss each of these components in detail and provide some insight as to how best to prepare for the new Natural State of Equilibrium, a post COVID-19 world.
For more information about the 360o Future of Work practice Or to speak to one of our experts, contact us on info@ecosystm360.com
Organisations are on a fast track to digitalisation. The Ecosystm Digital Priorities in the New Normal study finds that 60% of organisations anticipate increased use of digital technologies for process automation, even after the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. One of the key challenges that these organisations will face is the lack of internal digital skills – especially in emerging technologies. One of the success metrics of any technology adoption is employee uptake. Without the necessary skills or understanding of the benefits of emerging technology, employees will largely shy away from digital offerings, even the ones that will make their work more efficient and their lives easier.
Organisations are realising the value of making their workforce future ready.
DBS Instilling Company-Wide Digital Culture
Far-sighted companies are collaborating with technology vendors and professional training providers to promote tech awareness and education to futureproof their workforce. DBS Bank in Singapore has collaborated with AWS to train and upskill 3,000 employees – including the leadership team – with AI and machine learning skills through gamification in a DBS x AWS DeepRacer League.
The AWS DeepRacer Leagues have been previously organised in several parts of the world, but the DBS x AWS DeepRacer will be the first to be organised at this scale. The league will enable DBS employees to get their hands-on AI and machine learning tutorials online. They will then have the opportunity to test out their new skills in programming a 3D racing simulator and iteratively fine-tune their models and compete with each other. The learning program is entirely cloud-based and aims to ingrain digital skills in the workforce.
DBS has won several accolades for their digital transformation and innovation initiatives, and they continue to experiment with emerging technologies. In 2019, DBS digitalised and simplified end-to-end credit processing, setting the foundation for advanced credit risk management using data analytics and machine learning. They have also deployed an AI-powered engine for self-service digital options to its retail banking customers. Taking their employees along with them on this journey is a wise move.
Ecosystm Principal Advisor, Ravi Bhogaraju says, “With the increasing use of automation, AI and machine learning, the nature of work and businesses is transforming rapidly. This is creating opportunities for processes to be automated and increasing the use of AI and Deep Learning into the business processes of the organisation. Industry value chains are transforming – AI and machine learning is adding automation, analytics and predictive intelligence to the portfolio. The recent news of DBS and AWS partnering to upskill the bank’s workforce underscores the value of creating a future ready workforce.”
“Such upskilling efforts add industry-specific context to make them more effective. BCG refers to this as ‘Human + AI’. A recent study from BCG and MIT shows that 18% of companies in the world that are pioneering AI are making money with it. Those companies focus 80% of their AI initiatives on effectiveness and growth, taking better decisions – not replacing humans with AI to save costs.”
Government Focus on Digital Skills Upgrade
This week, Singapore also saw another initiative to bridge digital skills gaps – this time from the public sector. In 2018, the Government launched its Smart Nation Scholarship program to attract and nurture talent, and later involve them in various departments to drive Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives. The most recent Smart Nation Scholarship program 2020 attracted 723 applicants (17% more than the previous year). This is a slightly different approach, aimed at attracting digital native employees and mentoring them for digital leadership. After completing their studies, the 15 scholarship recipients are set to join public sector agencies such as Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), Government Technology Agency (GovTech), and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), to give the younger generation an opportunity to co-create the country’s Smart Nation vision.
Bhagaraju says, “Both private and government institutions are working to enhance workforce skills, improve marketability and making the workforce future ready. Industry 4.0 and the digital revolution have created the need to address the skill gaps that have arisen. Government programs such as the Skills Future program in Singapore, Malaysia’s HRD upskilling program, and the EU-28 European Digital initiative are all making a sustained effort to promote lifelong learning and acquisition/upgrading of skills for their respective citizens with quite successful results, that will have long-term impacts.”
As organisations stride towards digitalisation, re-evaluate their business continuity plans and define what the Future of Work will look for them, Cloud adoption is expected to surge. In June, there were several announcements that indicate the market is responding to this increased interest.
Cloud Providers Gearing up to Enable Economic Recovery
Global economies are slowly gearing up for a technology-led recovery phase and several organisations are taking advantage of the disruption to start or accelerate their digital transformation plans. Many are looking at this as a good opportunity to replace their legacy systems. Cloud providers are expected to lead from the front when it comes to helping the economy recover.
Government agencies have been immensely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and will need to shift fast into the recovery mode. Salesforce launched a multi-tenant dedicated Cloud infrastructure for their US Federal, state and local government customers, government contractors, and federally funded research and development centres. Hosted on AWS GovCloud and FedRAMP compliant, it provides customers with a compliant and secure environment to deploy Salesforce’s CRM platform and industry solutions. The launch is expected to empower government agencies with the ability to deliver better services, scale to unprecedented demands and connect to citizens on their channel of choice.
Initiatives such as the UK Crown Commercial Service (CCS) and Google Cloud agreement will also help in the recovery phase. This allows qualified public sector agencies to avail of a discounted price for their Google Cloud deployments. Earlier in the year CCS entered into a price arrangement with Microsoft as well. If Cloud has to be the vehicle for economic recovery, such arrangements will benefit cash-strapped public sector organisations.
The recovery will also require the entire technology ecosystem to engage not only with large enterprises but also small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Alibaba Cloud announced an investment of US$ 283 million to revamp its global partner program. They plan to introduce new partner-customer communication processes to enhance response time and bring more opportunities to independent software vendors (ISVs) managed service providers (MSPs) and system integrators (SIs) as partners.
Europe Emerging as a Cloud Hub
As a fallout of the current political scenario, Europe is pushing for more cloud independence and to become an innovation hub as a vendor-neutral network for cloud computing providers and their customers.
GAIA-X Foundation is a federated data infrastructure project initiated to build a unified system of cloud and data services to be protected by EU Laws – including GDPR, the free flow of non-personal data regulation and the Cybersecurity Act. France and Germany kicked off the GAIA-X cloud project last year and the system is open for participation to national and European initiatives for exchange of data across industries and services such as AI, IoT and data analytics. GAIA-X took another step towards becoming a real option for European organisations with the establishment as a legal entity in June. Various organisations – including Dassault, Orange, Siemens, SAP, Atos, Scaleway and Deutsche Telekom are a part of this non-profit platform, working together on Cloud applications, high-performance computing as well as edge systems. The project is expecting to release a working model by early 2021 and will be further enhanced in phases.
Global Cloud leaders are also focusing on expanding their presence in Europe. In February, Microsoft announced a new data centre in Spain leveraging Telefónica infrastructure. In a similar move, Google Cloud announced its plans to expand in the region in partnership with Telefónica. Telefonica and Google are expected to jointly work on Spain’s digitalisation through edge infrastructure and 5G for consumers and telecom infrastructure.
Cloud Providers Bolstering their Cybersecurity Capabilities
2020 has witnessed a host of cybersecurity threats and data breaches. While Cloud providers have always evolved their cybersecurity capabilities, it has become important for them to become vocal about these measures to build trust in the industry.
To complement the Microsoft Azure IoT security, Microsoft acquired IoT security specialist CyberX, last month. The acquisition will enable greater security for the IoT devices connected to the Microsoft network and will help their customers to gain visibility through a map of devices thus allowing them to gather information on security risks associated with thousands of sensors and connected devices. This will enhance smart grid, smart manufacturing and digital assets and profiles and reduce vulnerabilities across production and supply chain.
In another move which will benefit the ISV and SI ecosystem, NetFoundry’s zero trust networking API is now available on RapidAPI. RapidAPI’s marketplace enables developers to easily find, connect to, and manage the APIs they need to build a range of applications. Now the ISV and developer community can access NetFoundry’s software-only, zero trust models on RapidAPI.
More Partnerships between Software/Industry Solutions Providers and Cloud Providers
The COVID-19 crisis has had a far-reaching impact on several industries. The technologies that are expected to see the most uptake are IoT and Future of Work technologies.
Ecosystm Principal Advisor, Kaushik Ghatak says, “COVID-19 has brought to the fore the need for managing risks better. And the key to managing risks is to have better visibility and drive data-driven decisions; the sweet spot for IoT technologies.”
Last week, Microsoft and Hitachi announced a strategic alliance to accelerate the digital transformation of the Manufacturing and Logistics industries across Southeast Asia, Japan and North America. The first solutions are expected to be made available in Thailand as early as this month. Hitachi brings to the table their industry solutions, such as Lumada, and their IoT-ready industrial controllers HX Series. These solutions will be fully integrated with the Microsoft cloud platform, leveraging Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365.
Another sector that has seen significant disruption is Real Estate. Ecosystm Principal Advisor, Andrew Milroy in his blog Proptech: Driving Digital Transformation in the Wake of COVID-19 sees a real opportunity for the sector to transform. “Many activities within the property ecosystem have remained unchanged for decades. There are several opportunities for digital engagement and automation in this sector, ranging from the use of robots in construction to the ‘uberisation’ of the residential property customer journey.”
June saw Honeywell and SAP partner to create a joint cloud-based solution based on Honeywell Forge and SAP cloud. The cloud solution is aimed at real estate operators and customers providing aggregated financial and operational insights in real-time. The solution leverages the Honeywell Forge autonomous buildings solution and the SAP Cloud for Real Estate solution, enabling facility managers and building owners to reposition their real estate portfolios through parameters such as cost savings and energy efficiency and help improve the tenant experience.
As organisations struggle to maintain operations during the ongoing crisis, there has been an exponential increase in employees working from home and relying on the Future of Work technologies. Ecosystm principal Advisor, Audrey William says, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have become reliant on voice, video and collaboration tools and even when things go back to normal in the coming months, the blended way of work will be the norm. There has been a surge of video and collaboration technologies. The need to have good communication and collaboration tools whether at home or in the office has become a basic expectation especially when working from home. It has become non-negotiable.”
AWS and Slack announced a multi-year partnership to collaborate on solutions to enable the Workplace of the Future. This will give Slack users the ability to manage their AWS resources within Slack, as well as replace Slack’s voice and video call features with AWS’s Amazon Chime. And AWS will be using Slack for their internal communication and collaboration.
Delivering excellent customer experience in the midst of the crisis has proved to be difficult for organisations. Customer care centres have been especially impacted by high volumes of customer interactions – through voice and non-voice channels. This will see a major rise in adoption of cloud contact centre solutions. Contact centre providers are ramping up their capabilities in anticipation. Genesys selected AWS as their preferred cloud partner to deliver new features to customers and build a global and secure infrastructure.
The industry can expect more news from Cloud providers in the next few months as they ramp up their capabilities and channel their go-to-market messaging.
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