Everyone today is talking digital, walking digital and going digital. The process of digital transformation isn’t a one-time project, but a constant state of fluidity that requires enterprises to continually adapt and transform. Whether its massive organisations or individuals like us, digitization has been steadily moulding our existence. In another couple of years, most of us will have complete digitally-reliant lives; and we have already embarked on that journey. Reason why, the world today seems like an innovation lab beaming with ideas that are waiting to become the next big thing.
For starters, look at Singapore – It’s a technologically-fortified country which is adopting massive digital steps towards simplifying and enhancing its occupants’ lives.
In leading the country to ride the transformative wave of technological disruption, the Singapore Government has been taking big leaps. Last month, around 400 government officials and senior technology executives from across the Singapore Government gathered to discuss digital transformation in the public sector. The highlight of this OpenGov Leadership Forum was understanding how digital transformation is more than just the technology – and more about understanding the citizens’ needs and driving desirable outcomes.
The Government is accelerating the delivery of many strategic national projects such as the National Digital Identity portal SingPass, the adoption of PayNow which makes e-payments more integrated and interoperable, and bringing a Moments of Life app which aims to address its citizens’ pain points while transacting with the Government.
As Singapore’s Smart Nation push picks up momentum, services are being designed around the needs of both people and businesses. Imagine accessing every single government service online and also being able to complete 90 to 95 per cent of transactions with the Government digitally! To enable this transformation by 2023, a core group of some 20,000 public officials will be trained in advanced areas such as data visualisation and predictive analytics. There is an exhaustive transformative plan in place and the implementation has begun. If you’d like to read more, here’s a summary of the Digital Government Blueprint.
Many of you’ll must have heard that OCBC Bank launched Singapore’s first digital account-opening service that lets you set up a new bank account in 5 minutes. Their goal is to have one in every two customers on-boarded digitally with zero human intervention, and this launch is a significant milestone in that journey. This is huge! Talking of banks, Standard Chartered Bank, Malaysia has revealed plans to raise the rate of digital banking adoption in its client base to 65%, by 2022. In 2015, the bank had invested US$3 billion over 3 years in technology and systems across the group to refresh its products and services for ease-of-use on digital platforms. It also served to develop intuitive solutions based on client feedback and simplifying processes.
In emerging Asia, digitally active customers doubled to 25%, and grew 1.2 times in developed Asia to 85% of the population, according to a study by McKinsey & Company. No wonder, digitization of business processes is such a mandatory growth tool.

Did you know – Worldwide spending on the technologies and services that enable the digital transformation (DX) of business practices, products, and organisations is forecast to be more than $1.1 trillion in 2018.

The convergence of technology, data and insight-driven solutions is providing endless opportunities to businesses and people alike. Going digital is in vogue because it is the foundation of both growth and survival. Of innovation and agility. It is the new black.