IT'S always concerning when surveys, naturally based on hard first-hand data, show that a situation is much worse than we thought it was.
But that's exactly what's happened with the unnecessary spread of the coronavirus in some regional markets.
Indeed, when you think of leading causes of virus spread, top of mind would be close contact with others, not wearing face masks, not washing your hands, and leaving home unnecessarily amid lockdown measures (that is, not observing work-from-home, or "WFH", guidance from government).
Ironically, in our age of digital transformation and paperless initiatives in almost every economy, including (especially) Singapore's, paper is still a leading driver of employees having to go to the office when they should be staying at home.
Two years ago, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) implemented a nationwide e-invoicing network to help businesses improve efficiency, reduce cost, enjoy faster payment, and stay green at the same time. The network is an extension of the international PEPPOL e-delivery network. This allows businesses to transact internationally with other linked companies, and is an inspired example of a public sector initiative delivered flawlessly here in Singapore.
The private sector, however, also needs to step up and do its part on the innovation front.
In Singapore, a country widely seen as a global leader on digital and certainly leading the way in Asean, our research found that as many as 80 per cent of accounting and finance staff were still going into their workplace in recent months - even as the virus wreaked havoc on people's health and the economy.
Our data showed the leading reason was the need to continually process paper documents such as invoices, contracts, receipts, and expenses that are mailed into offices physically by post.
If an economy like Singapore's is grappling with this challenge of paper documents persisting in the corporate world, you can bet less developed regional markets are also struggling.
You can also bet that finance and accounting staff similarly have to go into offices during pandemic-induced lockdowns.
The takeaway here should be obvious: Singapore (and its neighbouring Asean countries) may be better able to slow the spread of the virus if their economies and businesses can transition away from an unhealthy over-reliance on paper in the workplace and towards digital alternatives.
As we've seen, a good place to start would be the most obvious: in the finance department of every business big and small, with the digitisation of paper-based invoices, contracts, receipts, and expenses.
It's encouraging that most public and private-sector companies in Singapore and elsewhere do have paperless, digital transformation, and remote working strategies and policies firmly in place.
Despite these, paper persists as public enemy number one in the face of these digital strategies.
The government's Emerging Stronger Taskforce, unveiled in May, highlighted the urgent need for the city-state to create new frontiers in the digital realm and seize opportunities in a growing green economy if it wants to successfully chart its economic recovery in a post-pandemic world.
FOR A GREENER ECONOMY
Indeed, moving away from paper and towards digital alternatives will not only help Singapore fight the virus and thus build the country's pandemic resilience longer term, but is also in line with the government's stated ambitions to become a greener economy.
At the time of the taskforce report, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat stated: "This is only the beginning of the next bout of economic transformation that we are embarking on...
"As Covid-19 is likely to stay with us in some form and for some time, it is critical that our businesses and workers take this downtime to accelerate our learning and transformation, and form new partnerships."
My view is clear: Both big (and small) businesses and the government should get behind a push to make Singapore's offices much more paperless as we chart a path of recovery and emergence from this pandemic.
In practice, we need a future-proof solution to make this work. It should be built on the latest technology while coupling it with a pragmatic understanding of the important role physical infrastructure and paper will continue to play in our economy (hopefully just not as much in our offices).
Businesses will still require a physical postal address for paper invoices (where they remain necessary) and other corporate documents to be mailed to, but ideally the processing and handling of all this paper would be outsourced to a third-party tech firm.
For digital documents, an email address could be provided so that, at the same time as handing off their paper invoice processing (then digitised and stored safely in the cloud), the documents could similarly be sent to a cloud mailbox and centrally stored and managed.
Such a solution would save companies substantial time and costs, while also reducing the need for employees to go to their workplace during lockdowns.
Think of it as a key technology pillar of future smart city infrastructure for Singapore and other cities that aspire to be smarter and more resilient - one they must embrace.
Yes, this sort of setup would be greener; yes, it would help with business resilience, but it would also just be less stressful... Who's not in favour of that after the past year and a half?
- The writer is regional CEO of Sansan.