Gearing up for the unexpected

THIS WEEK'S TOPIC: What has changed the most for your business this year?

Jeffery Tan CEO, Jardines MINDSET Group General Counsel & Chief Sustainability Officer, Jardine Cycle & Carriage

Businesses embarked on a global social experiment of working remotely from the convenience and comfort of one's home. What started as a "dream fulfilled" has (over the year) morphed into an area of increasing challenge for all - the strain on everyone's mental health. The silver lining of the Covid-19 pandemic is the focus and attention paid to mental health at work and in our community. This has moved from an "invisible" topic to one that is now clearly understood by all and thrust into the national consciousness.

The recent Tripartite Advisory on Mental Well-being at Workplaces sets out helpful, practical guidance on measures that employers can adopt to support their employees' mental well-being, and provides resources that employers, employees and self-employed persons can tap on. This change bodes well for Singapore - as we collectively and collaboratively work to build back better in 2021.

Cheung Pui Yuen Chief Executive Officer Deloitte Singapore

The events of this year have made us more cognisant of the importance of trust for our business. At a time when trust is most valued, the trust that we have established through more traditional means is being tested. The biggest change for us was to rethink how we maintain the trust our clients and our people have in us.

Through digital and virtual means, we continued to service our clients by adapting to their circumstances, and we diversified our offerings in anticipation of the help they would need to survive and recover from the sudden change in business landscape. For our people, we gave them the support they needed to feel safe and protected as they gave their best for the firm.

In the business community, the collaboration spirit strengthened as we battled Covid-19, and my wish for the coming year is for us to keep this spirit soaring as we help one another thrive in the next normal.

Lawrence Loh Director, Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations NUS Business School

The pandemic has changed business most fundamentally in the course of barely a year. As Taylor Swift sang with Ed Sheeran in an apt hit: Everything Has Changed. Covid-19 is more than a wake-up call - it is indeed a clarion call not only for transformation, but even for "mutation". Ask the basic question - should we just transform to deliver the business differently or should we always be ready to mutate to a new business? Even if the present pandemic ends, who knows when the next version of "Covid-X" will come. In the Swift-Sheeran duet, the phrase "I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better now" appears seven times in the lyrics. Yes, businesses just got to know pandemic risks better now!

Victor Mills Chief Executive Singapore International Chamber of Commerce

The biggest change for my business this year has been working from home. Prior to the pandemic, I did not think a membership organisation like ours with frequent events and meetings could operate effectively from home. Thanks to necessity and tech tools, I have been proved wrong. The other key enabler has been optimal teamwork. Tech tools and teamwork have enabled us to provide our members with quality content virtually and fulfil our mission. The other big silver lining has been how the pandemic has allowed us to accelerate positive changes, such as moving to electronic payments instead of cash and cheques.

John Bittleston Founder and Chair Terrific Mentors International Pte Ltd

Mentoring and coaching has grown faster this year than at any other time. The need for business coaching, especially in financial management, has clearly been imposed by the virus. The accelerated erosion of authority at all levels and in all organisations has involved a greatly increased need for personal mentoring-coaching. Our policy of 20 per cent of our work being pro bono has helped many, and in fact this year we have expanded to almost 30 per cent pro bono in view of unusual needs. The process of change is hard for everyone, even those prospering. We expect the demand for good mentoring and coaching to continue to grow exponentially from now on.

David Naidu General Manager FrieslandCampina Singapore

What has changed the most is the way we treat our people. In these unprecedented times, more is expected out of everyone, but to get our teams to work at their very best, we empowered more, created a more collaborative environment, enabled light-speed decision making, and provided a safe environment to "fail-fast, pivot-fast". Just as importantly, we were cognisant of mental fatigue, and we took steps to give our people the means to cut down meetings and truly disconnect from work. I am delighted that as a result, we now have a happier, more interconnected and effective organisation than in the past years.

Jonas Thürig Head F10 Singapore

On the professional front, this year surprised me with just how much could be digitised. 95 per cent of what would typically be done in-person for our incubator, went virtual. Personally, 2020 also made me realise how little I need, to live a fulfilling life. The lockdown period gave me an opportunity to rebalance my work-life dynamic - it taught me how to stay calm, work out at home, make time for a bike ride or a run, eat and sleep well.

Callum Laing Chief Executive Officer MBH Corporation PLC

We are a holding company of 20 traditional small businesses across multiple industries and countries. As tough as this year has been, and the personal loss of friends and family has been a tragedy, on the business front, it has provided a unique opportunity. A chance to test new ideas and strategies, new ways of working. For the most part, the businesses in our group and beyond that survive this will certainly come out much stronger and better for it. It has also re-emphasised the importance of business collaboration versus competition as a key strategy moving forward.

Richard T Loberas Head of ASEAN Genesys

It is difficult for most businesses to frame a narrative without including the influence of Covid-19 this year. Being a cloud customer experience company, Genesys witnessed organisations become digital businesses overnight to maintain business continuity. Our customers required cloud solutions to be implemented in a matter of hours to enable their employees to work from the safety of their homes and address customer queries efficiently. We saw the need for "empathic-centric innovation" delivered in the cloud that showcased not just the technical prowess, but the soul of the company across all customer touchpoints. If anything, this year has reinforced that consumers are changing, and to truly differentiate themselves in this no-contact world, businesses must find new ways to connect with customers so they feel heard, remembered and understood.

Nilesh Jain VP, Southeast Asia and India Trend Micro Singapore

The Covid-19 crisis has brought forward several years of systemic change in the way companies of all sectors and regions do business. The technology industry has thrived on the responsibility of helping everybody pivot away from the effects of the pandemic. 2020 has taught us some important lessons - we have seen how digital transformation, especially in the cloud, has changed the way we solve problems. Most importantly, the situation also demanded Trend Micro to provide not only the hardware, but also the "heartware" to connect our employees, partners and customers in a time of social distancing. It has been a year of many learnings, and I am optimistic we can emerge stronger in the future.

Takehiko Ryu Managing Director Panasonic Asia Pacific Pte Ltd

2020 has accelerated digital transformation and uncovered new business opportunities. Not only have we pivoted quickly to capture the opportunities in the e-commerce space, the heightened awareness for the need to safeguard public and personal health have also propelled our air quality business to the fore. As we put people first in the development of new technologies, products and services to enable a better life and a better world, we have made significant changes in the way we work to support our remote workforce. By leveraging technology to help our staff stay productive, prioritising their mental well-being and supporting work-life balance, we are enabling a new standard that will define the future of work in time to come.

Alain Deniau CEO & Board Practice Lead in Singapore Heidrick & Struggles

Covid-19 has resulted in the business landscape being filled with greater uncertainty. Our recent analysis of 965 chief executive officers (CEOs) found that companies sought experienced leadership to guide them through the crisis. As a global leadership and consulting firm, companies come to us for help in evaluating both internal and external candidates; and our conversations with CEOs have revealed that diversity and sustainability are still critical. In the post-pandemic world, businesses will prioritise diversity - gender, cross-industry and cross-border experiences - again to ensure companies are helmed by the best CEO who will ensure long-term value creation.

With the increased pressure on senior leaders, it is vital for CEOs and boards to think about succession planning and leadership development to make sure they have the best team to go through challenging periods.

Raagulan Pathy Head of Enterprise Sales, APAC Zoom

Almost overnight, the pandemic forced millions to socialise, work and learn remotely. For Zoom, that suddenly meant growing 30-fold - by April, we had already hit 300 million daily meeting participants, far surpassing even our wildest dreams. This meant two things for our business - first, it was a lesson in scaling rapidly. Second, it was realising we needed to put an equivalent focus on security and privacy, and embed it permanently in our DNA through our 90-day plan.

2020 also highlighted the importance of company agility. From being a predominantly enterprise platform, we expanded to cover verticals such as education, financial services, government and healthcare, as well as individual consumers connecting with friends and loved ones. At our core, we are the same brand, but such widely differing use cases have opened our eyes to features, services, and indeed, leadership and expertise we previously would not have considered, yet make for a far more innovative and creative environment.

Thomas Holenia President Henkel Singapore

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we work and engage with one another. For Henkel globally, our corporate values of customers and consumers, people, financial performance, sustainability, and family business have become even more important in guiding our decisions, actions and the way we operate.

During this crisis, we emphasise closer collaboration and unwavering support towards our customers, suppliers and business partners. We do everything we can to care for and protect our employees and enable their lifelong learning to secure their future. Sustainability remains a top priority and we continue to progress and accelerate our efforts. This year, as we mark the 37th anniversary of Henkel Singapore and 5th anniversary of our Henkel Global Supply Chain Hub in Singapore, we reiterate through our actions that our people are our most important asset, and call on every employee to participate in shaping our company's future together.

Lim Jui Chief Executive Officer SGInnovate

2020 has elevated deep tech onto the world stage, and there is now renewed attention on the potential of research-based innovations in addressing tough challenges. This has helped to push for a broad mindset shift among many investors and corporates, so we are seeing greater interest in deep tech startups, especially those working on pandemic-related issues. Building on this momentum, SGInnovate has been focused on providing more support for deep tech startups in our community, forging new partnerships with the public and private sectors, as well as nurturing high-potential talent for the exciting, new-age jobs that deep tech is set to create. I am encouraged by the progress we are seeing and look forward to more positive developments in the innovation ecosystem in Singapore and beyond.

Nick Jonsson Managing Director EGN Singapore

In 2020, we have seen the issue of an executive's mental health come to the fore, and we did our best to lead the conversation. Before the pandemic and its consequent lockdowns, especially in Singapore, there was much stigma attached to mental health which was difficult to overcome. Today, we see people being far more candid about the issue. EGN offers a network for executives to confide in each other through small deconflicted peer groups, and thus, we have seen our membership grow this year. There is refuge in being able to openly share one's problems.

Svend Janssen Head, Asia Western Union Business Solutions

Amid all the uncertainty in 2020, operations at Western Union Business Solutions have remained resilient. This is testament not only to our agility and nimbleness, but also to the robust nature of the systems that support our business. While the shift to online necessitated a fundamental change in the way we interacted with clients, it did little to impact the depth of our relationships. In fact, they continued to flourish in an increasingly remote world. What this indicates is that now more than ever, businesses prefer to rely on well-trusted partners. We are humbled by the trust our clients have given us and look forward to welcoming 2021 together on a stronger footing.

David Kuo Co-founder The Smart Investor

2020 will be remembered as the year when a pandemic has changed the way businesses think about how they want to operate. No company ever enjoys disruption. But every business, from the smallest one-man operation to large multinationals, has been disturbed either directly or indirectly. They must now expect the unexpected. Put another way, contingency planning is no longer a nice-to-have option that is added as a footnote to every project. If there is one thing that we have learnt this year, it is that if anything can go wrong, it probably will.

Long Jek Aun Singapore Office Head Simmons & Simmons JWS

For law firms, perceptions around the significance of our physical office premises have been forced to evolve quite dramatically during this pandemic. This will impact upon the preferred modes of working for the longer term. Law firms around the world will seek a new balance, giving new meaning to any pursuit for work-life balance and more impetus for the adoption of flexible work arrangements with remote working obviously likely to feature much more prominently. It is unlikely that businesses (and, of course, the individuals behind them) will come out of this crisis unchanged; so too the clients and customers whom they serve. With the lessons learnt and experience gained, there is great opportunity for many to come through changed for the better or even transformed.

Ho Nyok Yong President Singapore Green Building Council

It is no exaggeration to say that the entire building and construction sector was turned upside down in 2020: construction projects ground to a halt, industry activities were postponed or shelved, and the new business-as-usual has taken on a very different form than previously envisioned. However, for a few months in 2020, many around the world experienced better air quality due to the pandemic-instituted pause in heavy industrial activities, showing that the world's nations are able to put aside their differences and come together for a shared purpose. If we are able to do so for the pandemic, why not do the same for climate change?

Seck Wai-Kwong Chief Executive Officer Eastspring Investments

As the global health crisis continues to evolve, Eastspring's efforts this year have been underpinned by our purpose - Experts in Asia. Invested in your future - focusing on the health and safety of our colleagues, business continuity planning, ongoing investment in technology and meeting the fiduciary responsibilities of our clients. We transitioned from a company based in 11 offices across Asia to an almost entirely remote workforce operating in more than 1,200 home offices.

We continue to respond to the needs of our clients, expanding our investment capabilities and focusing on ESG integration. We also increased our thought leadership resources throughout the year for our clients and partners to ensure they feel supported, as global markets remained volatile. Against this challenging environment we continued to expand our client base, globally, and have successfully protected and grown our assets under management. I am confident that our resilience during this crisis puts us in a strong position as we look ahead into the new year.

Yu Tat Ming Chief Executive Officer PacificLight Power

The pandemic has changed the way we live, resulting in a drop in daily global carbon emissions by as much as 2.6 billion metric tons. Indeed, lockdowns across the world have prompted deeper reflection on our relationship with the environment, and it is heartening to see businesses rising to the challenge of combating climate change during this time. At PacificLight, we continue to advocate and help companies do their part - by leveraging solutions such as renewable energy sources, including solar power and the adoption of renewable and carbon credits.

Mario Singh Chief Executive Officer Fullerton Markets

The pandemic this year has upended almost every area of our lives, from mandatory wearing of masks and safe distancing measures to SafeEntry check-ins and the "rule of five" for social gatherings.

On the business front, many have suffered while others have taken pains to pivot. For us at Fullerton Markets, the biggest change was not so much the transition from physical meetings to online ones, but rather the mindset shift that was needed to assimilate the change. As we have an open culture throughout our organisation, physical interactions and the bonds that come with solving challenges - or celebrating wins - took a hit.

It took a while but everyone understood the need to pivot almost entirely online without a loss of relationship and productivity.

In one of our global online meetings, I shared the word ubuntu which is an African philosophy that means "I am, because we are." As we enter the final month of 2020, may we all reflect on the truth that we are human only through the humanity of others.

Charles Reed Chief Executive Officer Royal Greyhound

The Covid-19 pandemic has been described as the Great Paralysis and changed the world. It is unprecedented and far reaching. Royal Greyhound provides services as a business process outsourcing (BPO) company. From our experience in the past nine months, our biggest challenge has been cultural. We have gone through two major shifts in culture. The first change is how we value essential work. Our BPO work in Singapore was defined as essential by the Singapore government. At a working level, businesses have been forced to review what are the essential processes central to their core strategies and do away with inessential. Anything that did not improve our outcome was inessential. Even meetings have been influenced with outcomes being the priority and not just hours in the office. With remote working, there is more emphasis on transparency and doing what is essential for outcomes.

The second cultural shift has been the acceleration of digitalisation. Our meetings are more efficient because managers can be virtually available, thus more accessible, making cross-functional decisions in real time. Before the Great Paralysis, people were reluctant to work remotely. With circuit breakers, lockdowns and quarantines, remote working is the new normal. In the words of Charles Darwin, survival is not about being the strongest, it is about the ability to adapt.

Sumir Bhatia President, Asia Pacific, Data Center Group Lenovo

The year 2020 has been one of growth and continuing service-led transformation for Lenovo DCG. We supported customers, partners and our own businesses in this challenging period with VDI and SDI solutions that ensure business continuity and security for the remote work environment. As data emerged as the new currency and IT decision-makers as the new bankers, we enabled organisations to not just adapt but thrive through enhanced focus on artificial intelligence, edge computing, 5G, hybrid cloud and IoT. Like surfers surfing the waves of change, organisations that transformed digitally turned around their businesses quickly, relying on productivity technology in the new, smart normal.

Simon Dale Managing Director, SE Asia Adobe

The year 2020 has transformed how we live, work and play. Adobe's flagship mega events such as Adobe Summit and MAX went fully virtual for the first time. We have also unleashed new ways to stay connected and collaborate across teams, while prioritising employee safety.

As remote working became the new normal, digital transformation accelerated across industries. We saw demand for our e-signature solution, Adobe Sign, increase significantly and we are working more closely with customers to double down on their digital efforts - from content creation to data analytics, to the delivery of more empathetic engagements through personalisation.

We believe that data and creativity are key to unlocking new innovations that will build resilience going forward, and we continue to partner with organisations including SkillsFuture, GovTech and the ASEAN SME Academy to support the digital skills agenda and enhance end-to-end digital experiences in Singapore and South-east Asia.

Saikrishnan Ranganathan CEO & Co-Founder SensorFlow

As a proptech company offering a smart energy saving solution to the region's hospitality market, SensorFlow's biggest change was adapting swiftly to stay relevant to hard-hit clients. We introduced a new floating payment model that only charges hotels a fixed percentage of their actual monthly energy savings, helping them save on energy costs instantly without incurring costs upfront. We have also been developing new features such as SensorFlow Building Insights Engine, to boost hotels' operational productivity and performance, enabling them to tackle reduced staff numbers and contactless service demands. These changes have positioned us as a viable solution for cost-cutting instead of being an optional luxury, and will power our future plans for global expansion.

Toby Koh Group MD Ademco Security Group

The biggest change for Ademco has been firstly, the speed of change and secondly, the shift in mindset and strategy. There is no denying the fact that Covid-19 was a huge catalyst which my leadership team used to rapidly pivot and adapt to new business models and strategy, both internally and for our customers. Pre-Covid saw tepid adoption of our Security-as-a-Service model, as most end-users have a traditional mindset of using ample security guards and capex on security equipment. During the pandemic, customers' mindsets morphed quickly into saving costs, more technology adoption and manpower reduction. Our managed service solutions had a two-year leap into the future all because of Covid-19. Singapore has weathered Covid-19 very well compared to the Asean neighbours. I am positive that more and more Singapore success stories will emerge from the cradle of this virus.

Chris J Reed Global CEO and Founder Black Marketing

The year 2020 has actually been a fantastic year for our business as we have completely transformed it to become more quality-oriented, more client-oriented, and as a result more profitable. This is all down to outsourcing the best talents from around the world to deliver our services, and because everyone has now realised that their personal brand is online and in a business context that means LinkedIn. Entrepreneurs have also realised that you can now socially sell online and do not need to travel to generate new clients; in fact you can now have 10 meetings a day through Zoom with 10 CEOs in 10 countries and sell more services as a result. I cannot wait for more of the same in 2021.

Sujith Sivaram Managing Director ESCO Pte Ltd

This year has given us a new lens, a new perspective on all aspects of the business. New goals, new strategies, new ways of defining growth - from growth defined by numbers to growth characterised by maturity of the organisation - and new ways of evaluating performance with traditional KPIs rendered irrelevant. This year has also been a great teacher, helping us understand our customers, vendors and our colleagues much better.

Hitan Mehta Chief Executive Officer (Asia) Acuutech

Change is the only constant when you work in technology. Now more than ever, our clients are ever more reliant on us delivering value to them to digitise their business. The largest change internally for our team has been driving engagement and participation in what were daily tasks we took for granted. The team is now closer more than ever through daily standups and points of escalation. The way we report and measure our people has also been tweaked to allow for those moments working from home when one might have to care for those with them at home and moments for accepting deliveries. We are committed to change which adds value to our clients' digital journeys, be it using cloud, on-premises hardware or a hybrid of both.

Joe Keen Poon President Kaplan in Singapore

The business of education has been one of incremental changes of the gradual kind. The pandemic effectively took off the brakes and accelerated the adoption of new ways of learning at unplanned speed and scale. Despite teething pains, students and academia alike have largely welcomed and even internalised much of the e-learning arrangement. This adaptability, both at the institutional and individual levels, bears testimony to the incredible potential and resilience of our species to survive all the vagaries of nature.

Allan Tan Managing Partner Ying Communications

In two words: our mindset. Many strongly-held beliefs about how our business should run were completely upended by Covid-19. We thought work-from-home would lead to lower productivity, virtual meetings to more fragile business and collegiate relationships, and economic upheaval to severe budget cuts and lost clients. Ultimately, we overestimated the impact that Covid-19 would have on our business, and underestimated the ability of our employees, clients and partners to rally quickly when the going got tough. Covid-19 is the toughest crisis we have seen, but the human spirit is more than up to the challenge. That is the new mindset - and the biggest change - we will take into 2021.

Adrian Chng Chief Executive Officer GoBear

Traditional brick and mortar companies have had to adapt and digitise, but even fintech companies such as ourselves have also had to identify new ways to engage our customers and grow. This year has seen us adapt and transform in ways we could never have anticipated in 2019. From building products that meet new consumer needs, to collaborating while working from home, and all the while helping to ensure that our Bears are safe and healthy. It has been a year that presented us with many challenges, but what has changed the most is the growing confidence that collectively we can overcome this global pandemic.

Vikas Nahata Co-Founder & Executive Director Validus Capital

Validus, being an SME financing platform (across four countries, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand) saw a growth spurt in requests for interim financing when the year began. For us, the business model had to take a deeper look at the risk structures in place, given Covid-19 had affected how the world does business, cash flows, and also deeper use of technology to move interactions online. With a strong dedicated team, we were able to achieve that. The biggest change for our business is hiring for a new country, virtually! The entire team for Siam Validus was hired through virtual meetups and interviews - including the CEO! Definitely not something that one would have even dreamt of in a pre-Covid world.

Chuin Ting Weber CEO and CIO MoneyOwl

The breakthrough we achieved with our digitally-enabled comprehensive financial planning service - a first-ever in the market - transformed us as a young NTUC social enterprise. With our video call capabilities, we helped hundreds to plan and personalise their retirement, CPF and children's education with our fully salaried client advisers. MoneyOwl's vision is to help Singaporeans build financial resilience to weather any storm. Since so many trusted us even amid Covid-19, we are determined to press on and do even better - through the good, bad and uncertain times.

Dileep Nair Independent Director Thakral Corporation Limited

For most businesses, 2020 has been a terrible year. The global economy is expected to shrink by over 4 per cent. But for some, it has been a banner year. I am on the board of a company in the data centre business and it has done exceptionally well. So have many companies in sectors such as healthcare, digital entertainment, online retailing and remote working solutions. Learning to adapt to the current reality has forced all of us to accept digital transformation in our business wherever possible. So has been the adoption of agility in business processes to be responsive to fast changing market conditions in demand patterns, supply shortages, as well as labour uncertainties. Hopefully, having taken in these changes, businesses can look forward to 2021 as an "annus mirabilis".

Randy Goh Managing Director, Singapore SAS

The year 2020 has been such an unpredictable year with the upheavals and digital disruptions that the pandemic brought. In our business, we have seen how the pandemic has disrupted businesses and forced organisations to transform digitally. This has resulted in opportunities to highlight the value data analytics brings and how it can help empower companies with a competitive advantage in their decision-making - from enhancing customer engagement to building business resilience - concerns that become even more critical in these difficult times. It has been quite a journey, but working together with organisations to realise the value of being data-driven, is perhaps the silver lining to a stormy 2020.

Derrick Chang Chief Executive Officer PSB Academy

Like many industries, the pandemic has brought about a much needed, yet crucial digital transformation in education. PSB Academy, over the years, has evolved from a static learning pedagogy to a 21st century approach that anticipates and embeds the skills of the future workforce. Our hybrid learning model combines both online and offline learning resources to ensure that learning is not stifled by the pandemic. With the students' safety and health being of utmost priority, we are the first private education institution to install a SmartGantry attendance system to facilitate contact tracing and temperature screening using face-recognition for all members entering our compounds. This digital transformation will be pivotal in bringing quality education to the students, as we embrace the new ways of working.

Damien Dhellemmes Cluster President, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei Schneider Electric

Digitalisation and sustainability have always been Schneider Electric's priorities. But with the pandemic changing life as we know, we have been establishing even more partnerships to help organisations be more resilient through digital technologies. We have also moved to webinars and other digital events for both partners and staff to encourage further learning and sharing of knowledge. It is heartening to see that sustainability has emerged as a winner in these challenging times. We are seeing increased awareness of climate change and sustainability, with many calling for sustainability to be at the forefront of efforts to reset the global economy.

Jaslyn Kaur Managing Director Mohar Medical

The indefinite closure of international borders due to Covid-19 brought about a slew of challenges for many businesses, especially for those in the manufacturing and logistics sectors. Amid the uncertain climate, we quickly pivoted to begin medical equipment production, and Mohar Medical was launched at the start of 2020. Fully localising our supply chain in Singapore enabled us to sustain output of protective medical gear during the pandemic, and also build on Singapore's capabilities as an economic hub. As the fight against Covid-19 stretches into 2021, regional expansion will bolster our contribution to the stockpile of medical resources, and enable us to give back to vulnerable communities during this time of need.

Prajit Nanu CEO and Co-Founder Nium

Covid-19 has caused significant macroeconomic bearishness across all sectors, including the payments and fintech industry. Though the pandemic has proven to be a business challenge for all, Nium took this as an opportunity to significantly improve our unit economics. We have stepped back on "blue sky" initiatives to strengthen our core business lines, selectively diversifying our use-cases, and building a war chest for tuck-in acquisitions that compress time-to-market. As businesses and economies recover, our business metrics are reflecting some of our strongest lifetime months, and we are continuously pursuing inorganic growth and looking for the next milestone.

Onat Bayraktar Vice President, Asia Sealed Air

Our business has become even more integral to the supply chain, as we provide the essential packaging solutions to protect foods and goods shipped globally. We have made great strides to ensure that our solutions evolve along with market needs. However, our ability to continue serving customers during the pandemic would not have been possible without our employees. Whether employees are working remotely or at the frontline, Sealed Air is focused more than ever on priorities that concern our people. Ensuring their health and safety as top priority while keeping everyone connected and engaged is what we do every day.

Ng Leng Leng Country Leader Willis Towers Watson Singapore

This has been an unprecedented year where we face a grave health threat and the likelihood of a severe global economic downturn. The ramifications of the pandemic have made it clear that new thinking is needed, particularly when it comes to risk. Although we are seeing slow recovery in Asia, the hard insurance market and economic uncertainty are putting every financial decision under the microscope, driving many companies to choose between reducing expenses and upkeeping risk protection expectations. We have been working closely with CFOs, treasurers and risk managers to redefine their risk tolerance and appetite, and re-evaluate their approach to risk financing. Above all, their risk strategy must deliver financial resilience to counter future adverse events. Companies now need to be agile and adapt their risk financing strategy in a new world that increasingly demands resilience more than ever.

Pete Gatt Partner Servian

The year 2020 has been a year of uncertainty and turmoil. As IT consultants, we have seen a massive growth in demand for our services - like data analytics, artificial intelligence and cloud technology - as businesses have realised the power and necessity of digital advancement to keep going. We have also become a more global business, expanding into several new regions (including Southeast Asia) to service customers, both in region and remotely, from a centralised talent hub, which has enabled us to accelerate our customers' digitalisation journey by taking advantage of our global team.

Lawrence Ng General Manager, South East Asia Boomi

The year 2020 transformed the way we work and play. As a company with an established remote work policy, we fared well and were able to adapt quickly to customers' data integration needs. Technology adoption and deployment happened more rapidly than in the past, which accelerated many businesses' transition into more agile, data-driven and consumer-centric organisations. Businesses have had to tweak their business models overnight in order to create new revenue streams. For example, the aviation industry now has training providers, restaurateurs and on-ground delivery services. In order to support such rapid changes, organisations need to have an agile IT system which can be configured using an effective integration tool.

Jessie Xia Managing Director, SE Asia ThoughtWorks

Covid-19 has challenged the conventions of work for many across the globe, and that includes remote working. It is unlikely that its effects will ever be completely reversed and organisations must develop remote working as a business capability. At ThoughtWorks, we have been honing our ability to work remotely even before the pandemic - from equipping our employees with the right devices for frictionless collaboration, to fast-recognising and putting into practice efforts to support our remote workforce. A shift in mindset, promoting well-being and establishing trust is key to achieving an effective remote working environment. Instilling a culture of effective remote working will empower employees to be more productive and contribute to a retention of the best talent.

David Sajoto Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan ExtraHop

The pace of digital transformation has been increasing in the past few years. However, this year presented dramatic shifts across markets and industries and accelerated the move into the cloud. With the movement to the cloud comes the need to secure and monitor cloud workloads. As a security organisation, we have seen the widespread deployment of network detection and response (NDR) across on-premise networks, hybrid, and cloud workloads this year. It has been adopted primarily to eliminate any blindspots, inspect East-West traffic flowing between workloads for threats and anomalies, as well as intelligent response. All technologies have certain advantages and drawbacks, so enterprises need to deploy a variety of cloud workload security solutions depending on their regulatory environment, desired security profile and tolerance for risk.

Gan Ta Loong Managing Director Barco, Southeast Asia

The outbreak of coronavirus worldwide has fundamentally shaken up the business landscape and changed the way we work. While we were already preparing for the digital future of work, driven by mobile connectivity, cognitive tools and cloud, Covid-19 accelerated the transformation - pushing enterprises to embrace a truly hybrid model of remote and in-office working for their workforce, and increasing business resiliency, by embracing digital transformation at unprecedented speed. We also invested in a new office infrastructure that will be optimally using the available space to create smaller, more multi-purpose areas to support a collaborative mobile workforce and ensure splendid experiences for our visitors. The pandemic did not alter Barco's workplace transformation plans. Instead, this year's events reinforced that telecommuting and hybrid workplaces are the future for organisations. Overall, 2020 has taught us that we can do more with less - less space consumption, less travel - and still drive efficient results.

Serkan Cetin Technical Director, APJ One Identity

This year has witnessed heightened awareness around security with growing understanding and appreciation of its importance for organisations. However, the threat landscape has changed considerably with remote working. Truly agile organisations have strong threat resilience, and they must manage the access control risks associated with large-scale workforce fluctuations.

Above all, employees continue to be the most critical part of the security fabric. Organisations will need to reexamine their existing processes, implement better identity practices and employee education while shifting the premise of cybersecurity strategies to "zero-trust" and least privilege. As we prepare for gradual opening, access to corporate networks will be more sacred than ever and managing these controls effectively will be vital for a secure integration of information. With cybersecurity becoming a priority for leadership teams, we expect security to be more intrinsic going forward.

Victor Tan Chief Executive Officer TOP International Holding:

While it can be said that 2020 is an exceptional year, one silver lining has come out of it. The pandemic has forced us to accelerate our adoption in technology.

Many of our plans that were previously put on the backburner, simply because we were caught up in the day to day matters, have now been expedited. We took this period to ramp up on our digitalisation efforts, diversification strategies and business continuity plans. We now know that WFH is a viable option and that our employees are motivated even under minimal supervision. Post-Covid, we must be prepared that it will not be modus operandi. "Business as usual" will no longer be good enough. The new normal is going to be "business unusual". That is why now is the time to sharpen tools, so that we stand ready to seize opportunities when the storm passes.

Kannan Chettiar Managing Director Avvanz

The unexpected Covid-19 expedited Avvanz's innovation pipeline and in addition to our employee background checks and training solutions, we achieved new milestones: Firstly, we evolved into a fintech certified company with new offerings that include KYC/AML and Blockchain-enabled immediate verifications of credentials. Secondly, we attained WSQ-Approved Training Organisation status that now allows for companies to be given government grants to attend Avvanz's Digital Economy centric training programmes and consulting sessions.

Lastly, with great support from the government and availability of talent pool, we have been able to hire more aggressively and also expand more internationally. Amid the gloomy situation, Avvanz has been fortunate to grow with our niche solutions and I believe it is all about leveraging the available opportunities and pivoting with creative innovations.

Annie Yap Chief Executive Officer AYP Group

This year has been full of many twists and turns for everyone. Perhaps the biggest change for my business this year would be having to run my overseas offices remotely. As many countries went into lockdown, my offices have had to transition and adapt to remote working as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the fact that we run a PEO (professional employer organisation) business has made this easier for everyone involved. This allowed us to manage employees in offices all over the region without any hassle. Their payroll, welfare and all other necessities were easily managed and taken care of. Although this was a big change, I genuinely feel that this has given us new perspectives on employee management.

Lim Soon Hock Managing Director PLAN-B ICAG

What has changed the most for the businesses that I am involved with is the stark realisation that it is prudent to own digital assets, such as IP and data, going forward. For many years now, I have always been a believer and champion of IP, and for companies to own IP, if they ever want to aspire to be a global company. I felt vindicated when companies that are hard assets-based (such as airlines, hotels) without investments in intangibles such as IP or data, can quickly degenerate into financial distress, if not eventual liquidation. The lesson here is that it is strategically prudent from the enterprise risk management standpoint to own digital assets, which several of my portfolio companies have the foresight to do. The rapid pace of digitalisation will drive an increased focus on intangibles, such as IP, data, R&D, etc, in addition to the traditional hard assets or tangibles in assets valuation and value investing. The businesses of digital products that serve the new digital world can be scaled up quickly through network effects to generate and sustain high profits.

There is no turning back, given the digital wave that is sweeping the world, triggered by I4.0. Even central banks, which are traditionally very conservative - and rightly so - are introducing digital currencies to eventually replace the old fiat money. Likewise, financial regulations and standards will have to be quickly updated to accommodate this new sea change in the assets landscape, for financial reporting, disclosure and compliance, and of course, valuation. It is fortuitous that Covid-19 will accelerate this change.

David Leong Managing Director PeopleWorldwide Consulting Pte Ltd

The recruitment and hiring businesses are severely impacted by Covid-19, particularly the foreign recruitment businesses. With harsh border controls and curtailment of air travels, the volume of foreign talents and workers arriving in Singapore has trickled to unprecedented lows. Foreigners form a big part of our workforce fabric but Covid-19 has cut down the inflows. This shows that with a reduced flow rate and optimised deployment of workers, the equation of workforce mix - Singaporeans, PRs and foreigners - can be balanced without major disruptions. This is a real test of balance. Though there are inconveniences, they have become manageable.

That said, Singapore companies can consider expanding their wings and setting up overseas hubs with workers from overseas operating in their home countries. Communications and work process alignment can be managed through online processes without much drop in productivity. Backroom setups from audit, customer service, coding and programming to even education can be managed "borderlessly". Too many foreigners in Singapore will not be a perennial, unsolvable problem anymore.

Zaheer Merchant Regional Director (Singapore & Europe) QI Group of Companies

We have had six things change critically for our business this year as a result of Covid-19. They are increased and massive digitalisation across every aspect of business and jurisdiction in which we operate; the pivot towards managing and ensuring our supply chains better; enhanced customer relations via different platforms (and given zero travel) in customer retention policies; significant cost rationalisation measures being implemented in human resources all the way down to even simple purchasing requirements; the new normal in "work-from-home"; and relooking and ensuring effective long-term business planning. Each of these aspects may previously had certain latitude, even laxity. But absolutely no longer. Any weakness in any one component will spell organisational issues tomorrow. Each aspect will also be constantly disrupted and evolving, I fully anticipate.

The responses to this week's Views from the Top are being published over three Mondays.

This is Part 1; the full list of responses can be found at https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/views-from-the-top Part 2 will be published on December 7; Part 3 on December 14.