As the world gradually rides out the pandemic, what has been the digital impact on firms in South East Asia? And how are firms navigating the reshaped world? A panel of industry veterans from across the region shared their views on setting the path for operational efficiency at 存’s recent South East Asia Virtual Forum. 由Nigel Gnoh主持, 存 Associate Director of Business Development for South East Asia, the panel included Noorhaslin Mohd Baseri, 投资服务部主管, Employees Provident Fund; Brenda Choo, 首席运营官, 信安资产管理, 还有纳伊姆·汗, Managing Director and Head of Operations Transformation, 新加坡银行.
缩短数字化采用曲线
“The pandemic has accelerated our digitalization initiatives, pushed us to go completely digital in our interactions with clients.,” noted Khan responding to a question about changes to operating models. “While it was challenging for those involved in the change process, the speed of implementation would not have been as fast in normal circumstances, and we are now in a much better place than we would have been otherwise.”
Noorhaslin回荡, “Because we have already put in place an effective resilience program to invoke during a crisis, we have been operating business as usual since the pandemic hit us – remotely or onsite. And some of our processes have become even more efficient.”
她继续说道, “Our digital transformation journey started much earlier – mapping it to a 10-year period to turn EPF into a digital firm by 2030. Given the current abnormal situation, our target to go digital has been brought forward to 2025. 这对EPF来说意味着我们, 作为一家公司, have been working furiously to ensure that we respond and react much faster to operational requirements and challenges. Teamwork and cultural acceptance contributed to our ability to adapt to change much faster.”
Speaking about the rapid digital movement spreading across Thailand, Choo说, “The skillsets are changing – gravitating towards digital talents although this shift is not only unique to Thailand. What has been working for us in our digital implementation is to acquire skillsets in digital marketing and integrate them with existing product and infrastructure teams. The combined skillsets and expertise brought by each group has ensured that we are better positioned in developing solutions that address our requirements.为了进一步说明这一点, Choo gave the example of successfully building a Voice of Customer Program by leveraging the expertise and experience of a digital marketing team, which has improved the client experience.
“Teamwork and cultural acceptance contributed to our ability to adapt to change much faster.”
共同概念化数字化理念
As any transformation project is dependent on the people driving it – and not the underlying technology – Khan noted that face-to-face interaction between and among staff to brainstorm and spark of ideas or build on the ideas of others is lost in the current work environment. “Firms will have to look at different ways to engage resources and at the 新加坡银行, we have launched more training programs and virtual events to enable staff to come together, 互动并建立更紧密的关系, 几乎.”
合作成功
Choo believed that forming strategic partnership is essential to go the distance and hence, will create a permanent digital landscape change. She said, “We need a partner who is able to walk the walk with us, specifically at our back office. We need a centralized platform to seamlessly match and reconcile our trades. While it may be easy to manage this process manually, an automated solution is required when the number of trades increased to over 250 daily as was in our case. 具体地说, 存’s 机构贸易处理 (ITP) platform can play a big part in helping us manage our trade reconciliation and exceptions to ensure timely trade settlement.”
Noorhaslin concurred the value of instant access to 存’s global client community to communicate with EPF’s counterparties and accelerate the 帖子-trade processes. She also underscored the efficiency that the ITP platform brings to EPF, particularly when managing cross-border trades with counterparties from a different time zone. The benchmark reports offered by 存 has been useful in helping EPF evaluate the performance of its brokers against the industry, 她补充说.
展望数字化前景, Choo认为, “Leveraging digital capability to transform the front to back end will remain a priority for firms in the region. 对于前台来说, 我们建议采用快速失败, invest and execute digital strategy while robotic process automation has helped tremendously in managing our operations.”