“Singapore has progressed (from Third World to First) over the last 50 years and our social enterprises are going to transform to meet the needs of our time,” said NTUC Enterprise Group Chief Executive Officer Tan Suee Chieh in a press conference on 23 June 2016 at the NTUC Income Centre.
NTUC Enterprises is the holding entity and single largest shareholder of NTUC’s collective of social enterprises.
Mr Tan highlighted that the strategic shift for the group was motivated by the quadrupling of concerns faced by working Singaporeans beyond cost of living. These new areas include ageing, healthcare and social mobility.
These needs were identified based on research and survey findings conducted by A.C. Nielson commissioned by NTUC Enterprise. Of the 1,600 respondents polled (representative of the Singapore population in terms of age, race, gender and household income), 61 per cent were concerned about the cost of living, 37 per cent worried about their health and the cost of healthcare, 25 per cent worried about social mobility for their children and themselves and 23 per cent stated ageing concerns as worries.
Technological Metamorphosis
NTUC Enterprise shared its intentions to look into pioneering new concepts and experimenting with new ideas within the group’s network of social enterprises, which boasts household names such as NTUC FairPrice, NTUC Income and NTUC Foodfare, among others.
“The world is full of change. And the most important change that is happening is the technological disruption to our business models. We are transforming ourselves by investing significantly in new areas to cater to the new needs of our time.
“Instead of serving our people SE by SE at a time, we are going to harness the power of the group to help each Singaporean holistically. An example of that is our healthy eating and living initiative,” he said.
NTUC social enterprises have identified specific areas for development: e-commerce; logistics, distribution and facilities; automation, robotics and medical technology; risk and data analytics; and talent and people.
These competencies will complement the group’s efforts to come together to deliver an integrated suite of services to meet the needs of Singaporeans at every life stage.
