SCALE - IDEAS FRAMEWORK
SCALE
S
Staff on Demand
C
Community & Crowd
A
Algorithm
L
Leverage Assets
E
Engagement
IDEAS
I
Interface
D
Dashboard
E
Experimentation
A
Autonomy
S
Social Technologies
VISION
Yet significant productivity improvement remains elusive and the challenges remain, despite some positive reports. The proportion of value added by SMEs has increased marginally from 41% to 45% over the five-year period from 2010 to 2015.
New emerging challenges and Industry 4.0
Beyond current issues, new challenges are emerging due to digital age disruptions impacting enterprises. New entrants with cheaper business and operating models are threatening age-old industries. Since 2010, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (“Industry 4.0”) has powerfully influenced many mega trends and “shifts” impacting societies, industries and the way we live.
These shifts are largely powered by Internet capabilities and the digital age. As just one example, it is predicted that there will be 200 billion Internet of things (IOT) devices globally by 2020. Artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA) and biologics will revolutionise how business is conducted. From their Bitcoin roots, blockchain technologies will enhance the assurance and integrity of transactions and ledgers, removing expensive and tedious checks and audits. These current issues and emerging trends challenge the very existence of outdated business models and inefficient enterprises.
Exponential enterprises
In recent times, some newer start-ups have emerged which are emblematic of the rapid scaling which is achievable through adoption and deployment of disruptive technologies in this digital age. While most start-ups fail, a few have emerged as leaders heralding a new generation of change. These exponential organisations have significantly outperformed their peers and threatened the viability of seasoned incumbent competitors. It is found that these organisations have adopted frameworks which incorporate components of the above strategies but also engage their customers with “great user experience at the core of their design.” The strategies are framed
in the SCALE-IDEAS framework as promoted by research on exponential organisations (Diversion Books, 2014).
Returning to growth beyond Singapore, success may not come from direct exportation of goods and services from
Singapore to other countries, including neighbouring Southeast Asian markets, due to factor costs, and high labor costs in particular.
The faster route to growth is to invest in country-specific subsidiaries following “local-for-local” or “local for export” production models. This would allow Singapore’s exponential enterprises to compete and SCALE profitably by leveraging both lower local factor costs in their local operations, and access to financial resources originating from Singapore’s capital markets.
The keys to success, however, are to identify and exploit niche market opportunities that have not yet been detected or fully exploited by global or local competitors, or to successfully differentiate their products and services by leveraging distinctly “Singaporean” characteristics.
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VISION