Helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) ride the post pandemic digital wave

If we define “expert” as having a great deal of knowledge in a certain area, which “music expert” would you ask to find a song that best represents SMEs in the Singapore economy? And what would the answer be?

Chat GPT’s unequivocal answer was “Eye of the Tiger” – Rocky Balboa’s signature tune. Having thought about it, we couldn’t agree more.

SMEs are the dynamic centre of Singapore’s success. Did you know SMEs contribute S$230 billion to the Singapore economy each year, and they employ seven out of every ten people?

And so, on 23 March 2023, the Mercer Marsh Benefits SME Community Roundtable began by playing Eye to the Tiger; to celebrate the robust, fighting heart of Singapore productivity and to answer the question – how does that heart beat ever stronger in the digital future?

Here is a high-level recap of the roundtable:

First of the expert panel was Naureen Rasul, Commercial Segment Leader from Marsh Asia, who delivered some sobering stats about cybersecurity risks. According to a recent survey jointly conducted by Microsoft and Marsh:

• 64% of businesses in Asia have been impacted by cybersecurity issues
• 56% of companies in Asia have been targeted by cyber criminals in the past year, and of those, 51% incurred financial loss in the process.

The audience heard ramifications of cybersecurity risks go beyond direct financial loss. Reputational, intellectual property, time, data restoration, and trust costs are also at risk. And companies that don’t comply with the ever-evolving data privacy protection laws are subject to financial penalties, or even jail time.

So where do you begin assessing your cybersecurity? A catchy acronym helps: CIA. Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

SMEs need to do a lot, often on lean budgets. How do you save on CAPEX, but enable seamless hybrid working while running apps and solutions? Timothy Soh, Microsoft’s Azure Solution Specialist suggests for SMEs to migrate to cloud. Pay for the market-leading services that you use rather than buying dating, redundant on-premises capacity.

Skills for the digital economy are also in demand. It is one of the top three growth areas, and companies that invest in digital skills have higher productivity, better revenue growth, and lower employee turnover.

Microsoft’s Fiona Seng, Skills Development Program Manager introduced the “Let’s Skill Up”, a free program designed to meet SME’s digital skills needs. The program, in partnership with industry leaders such as LinkedIn Learning, and institutes of higher learning, offers:

1. Customized upskilling of your employees on your timeframe
2. Masterclasses on specific applications such as Azure
3. Training needs analysis and skills conversion programs

Lawyer, Ng Lip Chih, from Foo and Quek LLC thinks cyber risks are a clear and present danger. He should know, he is often in court on behalf of his clients on that very topic.

According to Lip Chih, the first step in preventing IP theft is an appropriately tailored employment contract that includes very specific anti-competition, IP ownership, and enforceable confidentiality clauses.

Lip Chih’s other practical tips include, all data on company issued devices remain the property of the company, and as employees progress in their career, their employment contracts should reflect their seniority and responsibilities. And no, Chat GPT is not the place to go to get one.

Panel discussion with Neil Narale, MMB Singapore’s Business Leader and Eric Koh, Chief Business Architect from BNS “Attracting and retaining talent in the digital age by going digital with your employee benefits”

The panel discussed SME’s challenges of attracting and retaining talent and how digitalizing employee benefits can help. They also shared some predictions.

Companies are now having to go beyond compensation to retain employees. Employees now want demonstrations of how much they are valued, time off, better culture, flexibility, a sense of belonging, and employee benefits. But not all employee benefits are effective. Digital benefits that can improve culture include:

• Telemedicine
• Digital mental health services
• Wellness challenges
• Access to discounted products and services
• Digital financial and wellness tools
• Digital and cashless experience at clinics
• Employee wellness programs

Moving digital means there has been a huge upsurge in data capture insights, which enable more proactive, better informed decision-making. That substantial growth in data also leads to more interactivity; wearables are likely to become a lot more common; medical providers might soon offer them for free. 

When that happens, services will expand, and the real time data will mean even better personalization, and more seamless experiences.

Personalization or customization better service our multi-generational workforce and their individualized needs – such Gen Y’s preference for instant recognition. Even within generations, there are distinct life stage differences, and hyper-customization will enable people to live better at any life stage.

But how do you enable customization in the lean resource constraint context of an SME? Start with a core default offering, which robustly meets the needs of about 90% of your employees. From there, you can start sustainably offering choices.

For many SMEs, this will seem like a huge step forward, but for the employer, digitalized employee benefits mean less administration, and resource savings as well as more engaged and productive employees, who are happier.

To find out more about any of the topics from the roundtable, contact Mercer Marsh Benefits today.