Mr Ng Hin Lee, Group Chief Financial Officer, Singapore Post Limited
Mr Thuvinder Singh, General Secretary of UTES
Union leaders
Ladies and gentleman
Good morning. 3 pieces of news make for interesting reading this morning.
NLB coming up with an app soon to enable book borrowers to scan and borrow books using their smartphones -- how technology will change the process, enlist customers into the production process and experience, and change the competition landscape for products like the current scanning machines for borrowing books.
Institute for Infocomm Research - invented the Huggler - using technology to help elderly depression patients and those with dementia. This both relieves and changes the way work is traditionally done by the counselling profession. Other kinds of robotics will enable substitution of work by low-skilled to high-skilled labour and more importantly to relieve pressure on a manpower short economy and reduce reliance on foreign manpower plus enhance the work capability of labour.
Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) reports a step increase in the number of employers caught employing illegal immigrants and over-stayers (from 15 in first half of 2012 to 55 in first half of 2013). While the earlier 2 pieces of news point to industries and organisations that are adapting to the challenges and constraints of the operating environment by transforming their operations and technologies, this 3rd piece of news suggests the oppositie. Here, you have companies that are not adapting for the future, but still trying to live in the past and using past methods, and trying to survive using methods which may even be illegal. They will not have too bright a future, of course.
For the Infocomm industry, where "Getting the Message" across effectively, efficiently and delightfully lies at the core of the various sub-sectors of the industry, understanding and proactively tackling the implications of such developments is critical to survival and success.
Whether it is from snail mail to email (SingPost - UTES), from analog to digital broadcasts (MediaCorp - SUBE), from copperwires to fibre optics (Singtel - UTES), from a state monopoly past to a hypercompetitive, internationalised competitive landscape now and into the future, the "Message is Clear" - the future belongs to those who are best able to stay Competitive, best able to Rally their workforce of all ages to upgrade and adapt within Easier, Smarter and Safer (ESS) workplaces and best able to unleash the collective power of the organisation through each stakeholder - each employee, union, shareholder, business partner, supplier - feeling Valued and Respected, and feeling Responsible as co-creators and co-owners the organisation's outcome.
This is why the labour movement (LM) has been championed the 3 engines of Cheaper Better Faster (CBF), Easier Smarter Safer (ESS) and Value Every Worker (VEW). This is the most balanced, Win-Win way forward for the individual, company, industry and country.
This is how we can also help make sure that Singapore and Singaporeans will be successful, both now and into the future. Happy 48th National Day.
Thank you.
