The Chamber invited the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) to speak with our professional services members about how the Industry Transformation Map (ITM) can support companies and workers by developing skills, innovation and productivity, in response to the changing business environment.

Here are the 3 areas of focus for the Professional Services ITM shared by Clarence Chua, Director, Professional Services, Singapore EDB:

• Innovation
The ITM seeks to build globally-leading capabilities in high-growth areas. Support is available from the government to accelerate firms’ innovation in service delivery via development of new solutions and business model transformation. Recognising that collaboration will drive and amplify innovation, the government will also create and facilitate access to innovation platforms such as setting up a Data Capital Consortium so that firms like Google, Grab and Adobe can help companies use data to drive marketing innovation.

• Reskills & Upskill
The ITM aims to deepen employees’ skills specialisations in high-growth areas such as data science, analytics and artificial intelligence. The government will work with firms to redesign jobs; Workforce Singapore’s Professional Conversion Programmes are also being developed to train PMETs for new roles; skills framework will also be refreshed to map competency development for high growth areas. They will also strengthen collaboration between firms and Institutes of Higher Learning to create more work-learn arrangements.

• Productivity & Internationalisation
The ITM aims to drive wider adoption of productivity tools and expand firms’ Pan-Asian market knowledge and networks. The government will provide support by catalysing collaborations between complementary service providers and increase profiling of made-in-Singapore solutions.

Clarence was also joined by 3 successful industry partners – Frankie Chia, Managing Partner, BDO Singapore; Steve Tan, Deputy Head, Technology, Media & Telecommunications and Partner, Rajah & Tann Singapore; and Thomas Mouritzen, Managing Director, Accenture Interactive, ASEAN – who shared case studies of their companies’ efforts in driving innovation and productivity.

We would like to thank all our speakers for taking time to share their knowledge and experiences and we look forward to more member companies coming on board this ITM journey.